Page 22 of Savage Hearts

And I hated to admit to the reason behind that.

I stayed in the home office for a while. It was late and the house was quiet.

Just past midnight.

Silas still hadn’t come home after I asked him to inspect the warehouse to make sure everything was up to par with what we wanted, and with Killian gone, it was just me and the little innocent.

I moved the mouse on the computer to wake it up, and opened the security footage in the house.

I doubted Mila knew there was a camera in her room. Otherwise, she would have taken more care when she changed, but I had been watching her like this for the past three days.

The image was in black and white, so I couldn’t see her details clearly, but I saw enough to know she had perky tits that would be a perfect handful, a trim waist, and a pussy that wasn’t groomed for sex. As if I needed the cameras for that, though. Not when she had been entrenched deeply in my mind from the first moment I had her in my arms.

There was no doubt she hated me now, and the soft woman she had been in my arms was long gone. How long would it be until I saw that side of her again? Or was she gone from me for good, and would only open up to another man? Someone who didn’t play the monster in her story?

My jaw clenched at the thought of her with another man.

I was just getting as possessive of her as Silas was. I knew it, just as I knew I would kill any fucker who was stupid enough to touch her.

Any fucker besides my brothers, that was, though whether Killian would join was another question.

She was asleep soundly in the center of the huge-ass bed. This house was big enough for Mila to have her own room, though she wasn’t that far from Silas’ room. She shifted and I stood without another thought. Going into her room wasn’t even a conscious decision anymore.

I had been in there every night, watching her sleep.

There was something peaceful about the act.

She slept with abandonment.

Not a very smart thing to do for a girl in her position, but I wasn’t going to chastise her for it.

I liked to listen to her breathe.

Something about it quieted all the voices in my head, and lightened the load on my shoulders.

Being in her room, taking in her sweet natural scent that was already dominating the space somehow, made me feel less like the head of one of the biggest criminal enterprises in the world, less like the big brother of two men who needed me despite what they might say, and more like?—

More like a man obsessed.

And it was as simple as that.

I was just a man obsessed, and how lucky for me that my obsession was living under my roof, completely within my control.

I held my breath when she shifted a little on the mattress, but she didn’t wake.

I smiled.

The little monster was a sound sleeper, which was surprising, because I thought with the way she’d grown up, she would have been more aware of her surroundings than that.

I shook my head when she barely stirred as I moved closer. I could make out the outline of her small form in the dark. Something about this girl called to me in ways that had never happened before, and I didn’t know what to do with the feelings she was able to bring out of me simply by existing.

Gently, I pulled the blanket down her body.

So lost in sleep, she didn’t even realize there was a monster lurking nearby.

The nickname I gave her was ironic.

At the time, I was just fucking fascinated by her choice of shirt.

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