Reign of Wrath (Dirty Broken Savages #3)(45)

“Taste.”

I lick it up eagerly, the salty tang of him exploding on my tongue. I can’t help the hungry little noise that rises in my throat, and Gage’s smile is heated and fond.

“You like that, don’t you?” he asks, his gaze locked on me.

“Yes.”

He pulls his finger away from my mouth and drags it down my cheek, like he’s trying to mark me there too. Like he wants to mark and claim every part of me.

“Good girl. So fucking perfect.”





16





River





I wake up with a jolt, the lingering traces of a nightmare fading away as I open my eyes.

Once again, arms come around me immediately. I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep alone again, but I don’t think it will be any time soon if it ever happens. I don’t mind that, though. The men don’t exactly stop the nightmares from coming—nothing can do that—but they help bring me out of them quicker, reminding me that I’m not alone, and helping me fight off the darkness. I’m nothing but grateful for that.

“You’re alright,” Priest murmurs in my ear, and his voice is warm and edged with sleep roughness. I lean back against him, letting out a shuddering breath.

All the men get what I’m going through to some degree, and they all want to help and protect me. But Priest gets it in a way the others don’t. A soul-deep understanding of the kind of pain I feel.

I wonder how many mornings he woke up like this. Heart in his throat, the remnants of horror lurking at the edges of his mind after a nightmare.

I turn in his arms, looking him over. He’s sleep rumpled, hair a mess against the pillow. Somehow he still manages to be harshly beautiful, even like this. The morning sun glances off his cheekbones, making him look even more angular than usual, but still so fucking striking.

“Thank you,” I whisper softly. He raises an eyebrow, and I clarify. “For being here.”

“I always will be,” he says just as softly. “Count on that.” Something changes in his expression, and I keep watching him until he speaks again. “I didn’t think I would ever feel anything for another woman after Jade. I didn’t think I could. I thought that part of me was broken beyond what anything or anyone could fix. And maybe it still is, but there’s a whole new part of myself that I’ve found because of you.”

I swallow hard, taking in the way he says that. It’s not heavy with emotion, the way it might have been if someone else was saying it, but that’s just Priest. I can tell he means it all the same, or he wouldn’t have said it.

It hits me hard that I’ve affected him this way, and I end up rolling him onto his back, straddling him right then and there.

His eyes are bright in the early morning light, and I lean down and kiss him, unable to help myself. He just looks so damn tempting and appealing like this, trusting, caring, spread out under me.

He kisses me back, slow and deep, and I can feel him getting a little hard.

I don’t push for more, though. Not yet. I just enjoy the noises he makes into the kiss. The way he groans softly when I push my tongue into his mouth, the way he arches up to meet me. The way he grips me so hard—I like when he lets go of his tight control. When his emotions break free, and they shoot up to like eleven, intense and powerful.

“You’re incredible,” he murmurs against my mouth, and I give him a little smile, nipping at his bottom lip playfully.

He laughs and grinds against me slowly, just because he wants to. Because he likes the way it feels, not because he’s looking for it to go anywhere.

And that’s fine. The closeness is good enough. After the way Priest kept me at arm’s length for so long, being this close to him just feels fucking good.

We stay like that for a bit, kissing and touching, letting our hands wander just for the joy of touching sleep warm skin while we wake up.

The nightmare I had seems very far away now, and when we finally get up, I feel better.

We head downstairs, and the others are already gathered, moving around each other with that practiced ease in the kitchen.

Knox whistles tunelessly while he fries up bacon, flipping the spatula in his hand. He catches it easily and grins at Ash, who snorts and steals a piece of bacon from the pan, fingers grabbing it and withdrawing before Knox can stop him.

When we walk in, he smiles over at me. “We’ve got some good news. I did a little digging and found out that Apollo died in that attack last night too.”

“Was that part of the plan?” I ask, moving to make coffee. It wasn’t to my knowledge, but I was mostly focused on the part of it that got us one step closer to ruining Julian. Apollo served his purpose in that, so whether he lived or died wasn’t important.

“It’s just as well,” Ash says with a little shrug as he crunches into the piece of bacon. “His gang was ruthless and vicious. They’d go after soft targets, using them to send messages to the people who crossed them. Dragging innocent people into their turf wars, murdering and torturing them because they knew it would hurt the people who cared about them. Shit like that.”

It makes me think of Priest, and I glance over at him where he’s peeling a banana to slice into his bowl of cereal. That’s how Jade died, getting caught between him and a shitty gang who wanted to send a message. So I don’t feel bad at all now, knowing Apollo is dead right along with Cyrus.