Love.
It’s a strange thing, isn’t it?
It can make you. Break you.
Take you to places you’ve never been before.
I know what they say about him. What he does for the Irish mafia in New York.
But the thing is, love is blind.
It binds.
And now, we’re bound for life.
Savage Savior is a standalone novella. It is a steamy, dirty, violent hot read with a HEA
SIX MONTHS AGO
They think they know me.
By the way I sway my hips. The way I blow them kisses, wink at them, laugh at their jokes.
They think I’m happy.
Why wouldn’t they? I giggle with the other bartenders all the time. I hang out with the girls after work. I have a dog, a Yorkshire Terrier, Gia, whom I take with me everywhere in a Louis Vuitton bag I got from one of my ex-boyfriends. An original, thank you very much.
I wear my smile like a shield. And behind that smile…there’s nothing but devastation and ruin. No one can know. No one should know. It’s my baggage to carry. My secret to bury.
I wear the right clothes and the right perfume. I date men. Handsome men. Rich men. I have sex with them. I use them, and they use me. That’s okay.
I think.
But then there’s Carter. Always watching me. Unsmiling. I want to ask him what he’s thinking. I want to ask him why his eyes keep wandering back to me in Hot N’ Bothered where I’m bartending and he works as a bouncer. Sometimes.
I’m not stupid. I know it’s not his real job.
He’s a mobster, like all of them. He may not be as cocky and aggressive as Cole Savage—though he is cocky and aggressive—or as formidable and scary as Graham Savage—though I know that Carter is a very dangerous man, but he’s a Savage nonetheless.
Like right now, he is staring at me wordlessly, his eyes roaming all over my face, never leaving me, never gliding down to check out my body. I appear to be laughing wholeheartedly, but it’s a fake laugh for the man who just tipped me twenty bucks. The man will never believe it’s a lie. I lightly bat at another man’s shoulder, who sits at the bar. Then I turn around to get him another bottle of Heineken and jolt when I feel him smack my ass. Hard.
I turn around and bat my eyelashes. “Was that really necessary, honey?” I purr seductively. Though really, I feel nothing. So what if he smacked my butt? It didn’t even hurt all that much. The pain, humiliation, and shock other women must feel in this situation is vacant from my body. From my soul. All I feel is the emptiness I felt before when I laughed.
Because that’s what I feel all the time.
Whether I’m being used or abused or when a nice guy flirts with me at the mall or buys me flowers, it makes no difference. I feel nothing. I tear my eyes from the idiot who touched me and look back to Carter who is standing at the other end of the packed club. I see through the crowd, through the lights and the darkness, through the music and the dancing figures. I see how his jaw tenses and his eyes narrow, how his fists curl beside his body, but he does absolutely nothing but glare at the back of the man’s head.
Nothing.