Page 32 of Viking

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Viking

One week later

Iwake with a startand sit bolt upright on the couch, clutching the T-shirt of the soon-to-be-dead fucker who woke me. She lets out a small feminine squeak, and I loosen my hold and lie back on the sofa.

“You scared the shit outta me, little siren. Shaved ten fucking years off my life.”

Arie climbs up my body and stretches out on top of me. I grunt as her bony limbs jab me in the ribs and abs. She lays her head on my chest. Her hair splays out across my arm and gets caught in my beard.

“You’re too big to be sleeping with me, darlin’. It ain’t right.”

I can practically feel her pout, even if I can’t see it in the darkness with her cheek pressed to my chest. I inhale and exhale slowly. Her torso rises and falls with my breath and there’s an intimacy in being this close without being inside her. Though a big part of me wants that too. I squeeze her tightly, as if she’s planning on disappearing.

“You have another nightmare?”

Her head bobs against me.

“You wanna talk about it?” I ask, and then chuckle, because even on a good day I can’t get this woman to say jack shit. “You wanna know what I dream about?”

She moves her fingertips across the thick muscles of my bicep, chasing the lines of my tattoos and leaving goosebumps in her wake.

“I have the same damn dream every night. I’m twelve years old. My mom just brought my baby sister back from the hospital and she won’t stop crying.” I settle my fingers in her soft hair and massage her scalp. “My dad comes home filled with piss and vinegar. He ignores my mother and me. He walks straight to the small crib, wraps his hands around my sister’s tiny throat and squeezes.”

Arie takes a shuddering breath and tears spill from her lashes, pooling on my chest.

“It’s always the same fucking dream. She screams and he squeezes until she stops and as much as I fight him, I can’t get him to let go.”

Her body tremors against mine and I smooth my hand over her back, chasing away the chill bumps.

“You know what’s so funny about that?” I ask quietly. “He never laid a finger on my sister—my mother and me he beat daily—but he never so much as touched a hair on her head.” I swallow hard. “He was dead and buried for years before I lost her.”

She tilts her head toward me, resting her chin in the hollow between my pecs.

“Yeah, darlin’. I had a sister—have—a sister. I couldn’t protect her. I wasn’t there when she needed me, and I’ve spent every day since trying to track down the bastards who took her from me.”

She turns her head to the side and presses a kiss to my chest. I trail my fingers over her back because I think it soothes us both.Who needs words, anyway? I know I shouldn’t, but I like the way she feels stretched out against me. I like being this close to her.

“Come on then. We’re too fucking big to fit on this damn couch when there’s a perfectly good bed a foot away.”

Arie slides off me and stands, holding out her hand. I slip my fingers into hers and let her lead my tired ass to my pillow top. She climbs on the bed, and I get in too, expecting she’ll keep to one side, but the second I pull the blankets over us, she snuggles up against my body and I’m now wide awake.

I stare up at the ceiling as her breaths grow heavier with sleep. How the fuck did I get here? All the men I’ve killed, mutilated, and ruined—my name means something. It means you don’t fuck with me or what’s mine. This clubhouse is mine. The men who occupy it? Mine. And this redheaded bitch beside me who’s been so hurt by the people she trusted, who says so much without saying a single fucking word, who called me safe, who can’t sleep unless she’s draped around me?

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