Savage Hunger (Savage Trilogy 1)

By the time I’m in my car, starting the engine, I’ve worked through the decision I’ve wrestled with the entire flight here. I could play this coy and hide my intentions to protect Candace. I could pretend she doesn’t matter and hope that tricks Tag into believing he made a misjudgment. I could, and perhaps I should, but Tag’s too good and runs too sophisticated of an operation for that to fly. And he’ll know what I know. I’m the most dangerous when I’m in your face, pissed the fuck off. I’m going to go straight to Candace and tell her everything like I should have a hell of a long time ago, but first, I need a plan that doesn’t freak her the fuck out as much as seeing me is about to freak her the fuck out. One that doesn’t put her on the run for the rest of her life or bury her six feet under.

That means I need to see her father, who loves the fuck out of his daughter, who I have far more of a history with than Candace knows. Or maybe she does. I have no idea what the fuck her father told her about me or the history we created after I left Texas. But that history included Tag. He’ll understand that Tag means trouble. He’ll understand that he’s now in the line of fire with me, right along with his daughter. That talk needs to happen now, and if I’m lucky, considering it’s Sunday, he’ll be at home watching football. If he’s not deployed.

It takes me all of five minutes to pull into the neighborhood that still owns a piece of me because Candace still owns so damn much of me. Gut-wrenching memories batter me. The night I met Candace. The night I met her father. The day I said goodbye a year and a half later. I punch the steering wheel and turn into the drive of the sprawling white mansion where Howard Marks, her father, lives. I’m here to set-up my first “fuck you” to Tag, of which there will be many and soon. I’m not sure how her father will react to seeing me, considering our complicated history, but fuck it. I charge up to the door and ring the bell. I wait. And I wait some more. Impatiently, I knock. No answer. Damn it. I scrub my jaw and march back to my car. Fuck it again. I’m going to do what I really want to do anyway. I’m going to see Candace.

Just the thought has adrenaline pumping through me like I’m in a damn warzone. Fuck. She hates me. I don’t want her to hate me. I slide into the BMW and play every possible reunion in my mind. None of them end well. I pull into the drive of her cottage, the one her grandmother left her just two years before we met. All I can think about now is seeing her, kissing her. I need to kiss her again, just one more time before I die. And I’m not sure when I do if I’ll be able to walk away.

I walk to the door when I want to run and break it down until she’s in front of me and in my arms. My finger punches repeatedly at the bell for a reason. She hates when people do that. She’ll rush to the door and I’ll pretend that it’s me she’s rushing to greet. Me that she can’t live without. Me that she loves. Instead, I brace myself for the hate.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Savage

The hate doesn’t come.

Candace doesn’t answer the door. I knock. I knock again. No answer. Damn it, she must be with her father. Out of patience, I drive a few blocks to the strip mall where her best friend Linda owns a floral shop, parking right at the front door. Linda will know where she is. I walk to the door, pull it open and find Linda, a pretty, petite blonde, holding an armful of lilies while talking to an elderly woman. The minute Linda spies me, her eyes go wide.

“You,” she bites out and the next thing I know she’s standing in front of me and the flowers are flung at me, a small hint of what I might expect from Candace. The flowers don’t hurt, but the emotion beneath Linda’s action is a blade slicing me open. I hurt Candace and I hurt her badly or Linda wouldn’t be this upset. “Why are you here?” she demands.

“I need to see her.”

Her jaw sets hard. “No. No, you don’t get to see her.”

“I still love her.” The words roll off my tongue without an ounce of hesitation.

She points a finger at me. “You don’t get to love her. Ever. You left.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I was deployed.”