Velvet Fire - Ashby Crime Family Romance

“I’m fine,” I reassured her, wondering if I would spend the rest of my life telling everyone I was fine when I wasn’t.

Kat shook her head, thick dark hair falling around her shoulders in a cascade of waves.

“You’re not fine and that’s perfectly all right. After all the shit you went through, you shouldn’t be fine and don’t let anyone make you feel like you have to be fine for them.”

She let out a sigh and a slightly amused smile. “I’m just saying to take the time you need. Even if you do by some stretch of the imagination, feel fine now, you won’t always. These things have way of coming back. Again and again.”

Kat spoke like an authority that made me curious what had given her such insight.

“Um, okay. Sure.”

She let out a sharp laugh and shook her head.

“I know. I’m kind of overbearing. My brothers tell me so all the time. It’s a hazard of being an Ashby and being the only girl in the family.”

Her words were filled with exasperation and affection, two emotions I was more than familiar with thanks to my own family.

“We have enough people in this family who bottle up their emotions and use unhealthy coping mechanisms, we don’t need another one.”

I shook my head and turned to her with a frown, ready to set Kat straight about the nature of my relationship with her brother, of which I wasn’t entirely sure.

But she shook her head in return. “Don’t bother. Virgil was gone half the night to make sure Rhymer is worm food. My guess is he’ll be at it again soon. My brothers and their employees, they are thorough. You’re important to him. Get used to it.”

I sighed and nodded, not because I believed her words but because I was too fucking tired to argue.

“Another thing to get used to,” I mumbled under my breath on a frustrated sigh. It wasn’t Kat’s fault, it was mine. My own fault for getting involved with a guy like Virgil. It was all too much. Too soon.

“Leave her alone, Kat.” Virgil’s deep growl sounded behind us and I wondered how long he’d been standing there. Listening.

“I’m just chatting with a new friend. Isn’t that right, Maisie?”

“Yep.”

“See?” She stuck her tongue out and pitched up on her tiptoes with a sneer and a laugh before leaving us alone.

“Little sisters,” he grunted. “I do not recommend.”

“Liar,” I said walking up to him.

He loved his family; it was one of the most appealing things about him.

Virgil wrapped his arms around me and pulled my body flush to him. My lips pressed right against his. “Good morning, my beautiful Maze.”

The feel of his lips on mine was just what I needed to settle my pulse and my mind. “Better morning now.”

He flashed a satisfied smile. “Good to know I’m the secret ingredient to your happy days.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t deny it. “How are you?”

“Worried about you. Are you sure you’re okay?”

There was so much concern swimming in his eyes my heart skipped a beat, and I found it difficult to swallow.

Had any man outside my family ever shown so much care for me? Hell no. Never.

“I’m okay, Virgil. I swear.”

He flashed a skeptical look, and I sighed.

“Okay, fine. I will be all right.” I put both of my hands to his face, feeling the gentle scrape of his stubble against my palm as I stared into his eyes. “I will be.”

My insistence provided some relief for him. I was grateful because I didn’t want this, or me, to be another burden he carried.

“Talk to me, Maze. Tell me the truth. Is anything that’s happened so far a dealbreaker for you?”

His expression was serious, like the answer was important to him.

Was any of it a dealbreaker? No. It was no different than all the trouble that had showed up at Hardtail Ranch over the years, guys with guns. Girls with guns. Government agents. Attempted kidnappings. Suicide. All types of criminals. I could handle most of it.

“Nope, not a deal-breaker.”

“Thank fuck,” he growled. “Because I want you, Maisie. Not just for tonight and not just in my bed. I want you at my side and in my bed.”

He smiled down at me and pulled me closer as if he was worried I might get up and walk away. Vanish from his grasp.

“I just want you, Maze.”

It all sounded good but to my ears it sounded…incomplete.

“What does that mean?”

Virgil didn’t say that he loved me, but did I need him to? He went out and killed the man who ordered my kidnapping, the same fucker who pumped drugs into my body and cut my clothes off. He did that because he felt something for me. Something big and unexplainable. Maybe not love, but whatever version of love he was capable of. That was what this was.