Savage Hunger (Savage Trilogy 1)

“I used to,” she says softly.

I arch a brow. “Not anymore, though?”

“Not for a long time.”

Adam squeezes past me, breaking the moment, with a forceful, “Bring on the pizza.”

Everyone digs in then, loading up plates before we all end up at the kitchen table. I don’t even hesitate to claim a spot next to Candace. I want to be near her. Hell, I want to be with her, so fucking badly, it hurts. Smith is the one who gets everyone talking. “Remember that time Adam disguised himself as an old pizza delivery man?”

“You did what?” Candace asks.

“He’s a master of disguise,” I say. “A beanstalk that can become a molehill. He’s a freak, I tell you.”

“That’s what she said,” Adam jokes, wiggling his eyebrows.

Smith groans at the bad joke and Candace delivers unto us, a perfectly sweet, girly laugh.

“An absolute freak show,” I amend, taking a bite of pizza.

“He was all hunched over and still taller than everyone else,” Smith laughs. “But that wrinkly face he wore? Fuck, man. That looked real. And the clown. The clown was freaky.”

“Why were you a clown?” Candace asks.

“Because the guy I was hunting was afraid of clowns.”

Candace laughs and God, I love her laugh. If I could bottle it, I’d drink it, snort it, lick it—no, I’d rather lick her. My mind goes to me between her legs last night and I stand up. “I need another slice.”

“I need to make some calls,” Adam says, while Smith, quiet mofo that he is, just gets up and says nothing.

“Just put your plates in one of the boxes,” Candace says. “The trash bag is missing, thanks to Rick.”

Adam and Smith get lost and then it’s just me and her. I open the pizza box and we both reach for the last piece of pepperoni. “Mine,” she teases as we both hang onto it.

“You know I’ve killed men for less,” I say before I can stop myself.

The air is instantly charged and she lets go of the pizza, but her hand settles on my arm. “You’re going to have to let go of the pizza to kiss me, you know that, right?”

I let it go and my hands come down on her arms, a million reasons to walk away from her in my mind and I want to reject them all. She smells good. She tastes good. She makes me feel good as fuck. “Candace—”

“I don’t care about you being a mercenary. That’s where life took you. And now it brought you back here.”

Where life took me. Here it is. My moment has arrived. This is where I should tell her how it took me there. This is where I should explain how deep the connection between me and her father truly runs. “I need air,” I say, setting her away from me and walking toward the patio door. I make it all the way there and stop. I’m shutting her out because I don’t want to hurt her. I’ve spent eight years shutting her out and it didn’t get me what I wanted which is her.

I glance over my shoulder to find her standing with her back to me. “Candy,” I say softly.

She whirls around to face me, pain in the depths of those green eyes. “Yes?”

“Come with me.” I exit the house and leave her to make the decision to follow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Savage

I step onto the enclosed porch that I built years ago and press my hands to the railing, watching the rain drizzle onto the lawn, memories pounding at me. We’d been so damn in love and her father had been everything to me that mine had not been, a man I respected. A man I wanted to impress and make proud.

“Rick.”

I turn toward Candace’s voice, and the minute I see her standing there in that big pink fluffy sweater, I’m hot and hard, and in love in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible if I hadn’t met her all those years ago. I don’t hesitate. I close the space between us, pull her to me, and fold her close. My hand goes to the back of her head, her back to the post behind us and my mouth to her mouth. I kiss her. I kiss her like I’m dying and she’s the only life that exists. I kiss her and kiss her some more, and when finally I come up for air, the rain pounds down behind us, falling hard and fast, thunder rolling above.

“I’m going to protect you,” I vow. “No matter what I am, who I am now, I will protect you.”

Her eyes sharpen on my face. “You blame yourself. You think I’m going to blame you for putting my father at risk. You didn’t cause this. You didn’t make Gabriel do bad things.”

My spine goes stiff and I release her, stepping away, pressing my hands back to the railing, battling between protecting her from her father’s involvement and the necessity for her to know all in order to protect herself. In that moment, I do a silent “thank fuck” for Adam running his mouth. Because if I was a monster of her father’s creation, her father is a monster, too. I can’t do that to her. I can’t make us that while she’s engaged to that bastard.