The Kingdom (Preacher Brothers 1)

“I love you too,” he muttered against my mouth. “And I don’t know what I did to deserve to have you in my life. God knows, I’m a fucking bastard, steal to survive, and have a shitty background, have done shit to stay alive that would have me going up in flames if I stepped into a church.” He cupped the side of my face. “I’ll show you for the rest of my life how much you mean to me, that I can be a good man to you, that I can be worthy of your love.”

I cupped the side of his face then rose up on my toes and was the one to kiss him. I didn’t know what to say in response. I needed to be worthy of his love too.

But instead of saying anything, I kissed him again and again and again, loving that two lost, broken souls could be whole if the stars aligned just right.

Chapter Twenty

Cullen

I should have slowed down, pulled over until the storm subsided, until I could calm down. I felt just as turbulent as the raging weather, as the hail slamming down against my windshield, as electrifying as the lightning cracking through the sky.

I felt like my life was spinning out of control once more, as if I were that little boy unable to stop his father form hitting him, unable to fully protect my brothers.

Dom found a woman he was happy with, and although she’d been this complication at first—something I knew I had to get rid of to save my brothers, our family—it was fucking clear she was his. He’d die for her.

He’d leave us for her.

I slammed my hand on the steering wheel, feeling like I had no control, like I’d never be able to have order once more. I lived my life protecting them, watching over them and cleaning up their messes. But they were grown now, living their own lives. Maybe I just needed to take a step back, reevaluate everything.

Find myself.

And so I had. I did.

I was going to go to the cabin, isolate myself there, make sure I was calm and levelheaded, knew my next step before I went back there. I wouldn’t abandon them. I’d never leave my brothers. They were everything I had. The only thing I had.

The rain pelted the car and road, my tires barely catching the asphalt when I took a sharp turn.

I took another turn then straightened out the car, my tires squealing on the wet asphalt. I tightened my hold on the steering wheel, my emotions turbulent, consuming. I’d never been able to handle them when they did make an appearance, although I could hide them pretty fucking well.

I played that shit off like I was dead inside, and I supposed I was. But seeing Dom happy had a spark of something growing in me. His happiness made me fucking… happy.

Pretending I didn’t have a care in the world, didn’t give a shit about much of anything, was how I survived, how I kept everyone at arm’s length. It’s why I’d never been with a woman, had never claimed one as my own. I could’ve laughed at that fucking revelation.

Here I was, a thief, someone who’d gotten into plenty of fights, and had put plenty of men in the hospital. Hell, at one point, I even thought I’d killed someone. I wasn’t a good man, never saw myself having a happily ever after. And if people thought I was fucking women and tossing them away, then I let them think that. What I wouldn’t let them know, what I wouldn’t admit, was the truth.

That I was a virgin, because I was afraid to get close to anybody, that I was afraid I’d hurt them, because I was so fucking messed up in the head. I’d given enough agony in my fucking life to last me an eternity. And so when I saw Dom happy, willing to give up anything and everything to be with Amelia, I didn’t know how to react, how to feel. And something in me had just snapped. Something in me had risen up violently and I wanted to extinguish the threat.

And that was wrong of me. It was wrong of me to try and take something away from my brother that he held so dear, to take away that happiness he deserved tenfold.

I took another turn, my car skidding to the side before I was able to right it. The rain was coming down even harder, even more violent.

I should have turned the car around, should have apologized to my brothers for all the shit I put them through, not just because of the situation but in general. I knew I was a hardass, a bastard and asshole at the best of times. I was horrible at showing how I cared for them. The way I showed them was beating the shit out of somebody who’d talked bad about them, and picking up extra work when we were on a job—hell, giving them more of my cut and not telling them about it.