Savage Beast (Savage People 2)

Warning: Taboo, ménage, dirty talk, hot as f*ck.

I dated a mobster. A monster. A maniac.

He left me scarred, marred, and done with men in general. The last thing I need is another man in the very same lifestyle. I might let Cole Savage into my bedroom, but I can’t let him into my heart.

She’s been hurt before. She thinks I’ll hurt her again.

Problem is, I’m not the one who is trying to hurt her.

Her ex-boyfriend is a part of the Lucky Lucianos, an up-and-coming Italian mafia in New York City. He thought he could get away with what he did to her, but he won’t be so lucky when I get my hands on him.

Success is hunger.

I’d learned that the hard way. How? I was hungry.

So hungry my cheeks were hollow and my skin was yellow.

So hungry it felt cold, even in New York in August.

So hungry all I could think about was my last meal.

It all changed one day when Graham Savage caught me trying to shoplift from one of his many stores in Brooklyn. It was a fucking wrapped sandwich and a can of Coke. I wasn’t greedy, but it’d been a while since I’d last had a decent meal, and I guess I got a little sloppy.

Fine. Very sloppy.

I was only thirteen when I tried to run away and he jerked me back into the store by the collar of my shirt and swung me against the wall, pinning me with both his arms and his threatening gaze.

“And just what the fuck do you think you’re doing, punk?”

He had a foreign accent. I found out later that it was Irish. I knew I had Irish roots—my last name was O’Donovan, for crying out loud—but that didn’t give him any brownie points in my book. If anything, it made me hate him more before I even knew him. My family was a bunch of fuck-ups, which is why I ended up living in the hallway of a Brooklyn building. Mom kicked me out when I was eleven because I didn’t get along with her ex-boyfriend. I didn’t get along with her ex-boyfriend because he tried to touch me twice while I was asleep. It was all a big mess.

Anyway, the point was, I didn’t like Graham Savage from the get-go.

“Fuck you!” I yelled in his face, knowing full well that I was gonna get a beating for this bullshit. I couldn’t even blame him. I stole from him, then I cussed him. He had every right to punch my ass and drag me outside to finish the job.

“Fuck me? You don’t have the right anatomy, kid, but let me tell you something. If I ever find you anywhere near my business again, you’re dead. Not thrown into juvie. Not beaten up. Simply dead. You know, like Simply Red, but without a pulse.”

Weirdo. Just a goddamn weirdo. What the hell did he mean by that anyway? Simply Red? Was that a band?

“Let go of me,” I hissed through clenched teeth, my neck burning with embarrassment and surprise. There were a few women in the convenient mart, and they were looking at us. The cashier, an older man with a tweed jacket and salt and pepper hair, looked at us, too. I didn’t like the attention. I was too used to being a walking shadow of what used to be a person. Getting noticed made me feel so weird I swear I became itchy.

“Fine,” I bit out. “I will never go near your grocery store again. Now, let me go.”

He released his hold on my shirt and moved away from me, but I didn’t make a move right away. His other fist still held the sandwich wrap and the can of Coke I tried to steal from him, and my eyes zeroed on the food and the cold, sweet drink. My vision filled with black dots, and I knew that if I didn’t put food in me sometime soon, I’d probably pass out again. I hated fainting. Fainting was the worst. Fuck, I should’ve paid more attention before I tucked the food into my tattered jacket.

“You want this?” Graham raised the hand that held the sandwich, arching his eyebrows. “You want this fucking food?”

He sounded so condescending I wanted to punch him in the face, but knew I barely had any strength in me to get out of there with all my body parts intact. I nodded slowly, swallowing the ball of shame down my throat. Fuck yeah, I wanted that.

Gulping, I shrugged.

“So what if I do?”