Page 63 of Savage Cravings

“You’ll like me,” I said.

“You’re rather cocky, aren’t you?”

“I much prefer the term confident.” I grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. Instead, she started to unpack the food. I probably should help her, but even the way she did the most mundane things utterly captivated me.

Mila Hayes was a dangerous woman.

There was no denying that.

She shot me a look when she got the last item from the basket—a container of grapes—knocking me out of my wonderstruck haze, so I moved the basket out of the way.

I took the seat next to her and sat down as close as possible. Our eyes met, and I knew mine dared her to say something about it and move away.

She stubbornly stayed where she was. I grabbed a triangle turkey sandwich and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she muttered, taking it from my hand and nibbling on the bread delicately. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

I nodded and looked away from her, grabbing a sandwich for myself.

“So, what are we really doing here?” she asked after a moment. I looked down at the half-eaten sandwich in her hand.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“You said you were going to take me around to see the city.”

I shrugged. “The city’s not that interesting, anyway.”

“Silas, be serious.”

I opened the container with the grapes and pushed it closer to her. Then I watched as she plucked a grape from the stem and took a bite. The juice leaked from the corner of her lips, and I knew my eyes darkened in desire.

My expression was surely one that even someone innocent couldn’t miss.

She blinked as if surprised, looking away from me and wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

“I am being serious,” I answered, grabbing hold of her wrist and pulling it away from her face. She didn’t say anything as I moved my thumb over the skin coated in grape juice. Fuck me, but I really wanted to kiss her again.

The memory of her taste was so deeply embedded in my mind, I wanted a repeat. I licked my lips, and she moved back from me, shaking her head. “You’re not distracting me, so don’t even think about it.”

I smirked. “No? You’re telling me you don’t want to?”

“That’s what this is about? You want me, physically, and that’s why you’re trying so hard? Did New Orleans run out of women or something?”

“None of them are you.”

“What’s so special about little ol’ me?”

I shrugged, unable to put into words the hold she had on me. I didn’t fucking know, and I didn’t want to analyze it. All I knewwas that I could no more let Killian kill her than I could let her go.

Love at first sight was a fucking joke, but it was undeniable that she affected me way more than she should have. And I had made it my life’s goal then and there—I would become the center of her universe. Just as she had so irrevocably become mine.

“I don’t think we should do this,” she said.

“Why not?”

“You barely know me. I don’t even know you.”

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