Ashley

“You… do not… leave your house… dressed like that… without being on the arm of a man like me,” he ground out on a terrifying staccato with scary pauses.

“A man like you?” I whispered.

“A man who’d shoot another man in the face he even looked at you. Yeah, Anya, a man… like… me.”

“Wars fought over a face like this,” he murmured like he was talking to himself, my heart stopped beating and his thumbs moved lightly across my cheeks. “A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it,” his eyes came to mine, “poison his brother to possess a face like this.”

“I’ll kill him, he touches you again,” he murmured.

Oh boy.

“Knight,” I breathed, my fingers clenching tighter in his tee.

“Kill anyone, they touch you.”

Still smiling a hell on wheels beautiful smile, he muttered, “My baby’s funny.”

I didn’t move, held on and held his eyes.

He let me for a long happy moment before muttering, “My baby doesn’t want me to leave.”

“Nick came to my house, saw you, told you that and you believed it and left me.”

His eyes held mine and they did this a long time.

Then he asked gently, “Did I make my baby happy?” and my limbs all automatically squeezed.

You need to understand, baby, that in this scenario right here in this bed no matter whose ass is tender, I’m the lucky one. You with me?”

He looked back into my eyes. “You’re perfect, baby.”

I blinked.

Then I whispered, “Knight –”

“No, Anya, no fucked up shit outta that sweet mouth. I’m not gonna listen to it and I’ll work my balls off, I don’t care if it takes decades, to make you stop even thinkin’ it. Instead, you gotta know that every second I spend with you it becomes more and more clear you were made for me. A gift I don’t deserve, didn’t earn but I’m not giving it back.”

Then I said quietly, “You need a haircut, honey.”

“Uh… no,” he said quietly back. “Every time I let you use your hands, you get excited, you fist them in my hair. I like to feel you get excited any way including that way. I start lookin’ like a biker or a hippie, I’ll go to the barber. Until then, my baby’s got something to hold onto.”