"My world is a lot more dangerous. Kidnappers don’t take you because they’re obsessed with your father and want whichever piece of him they can get.
"They take you because they want your spilled blood to mean something. Vengeance, a warning, a threat."
"You can’t save me from myself, Aidan," she rasped. "And I told you yesterday, I’m done with you blowing hot and cold. You take me or you don’t, but you make a decision fast or I’ll find some other motherfucker to claim me and make me his."
A snarl was torn from me, the visceral reaction to her words firing me up much as it did earlier.
"You need to stop making that threat."
To my growl, she purred, "Why? When you react so beautifully."
Even though I knew if I didn’t nip this in the bud, stop it from becoming a common occurrence between us where she thought she could have me by the balls just because she threatened me with another man taking ownership of her, I couldn’t stop myself from looming over her.
The second I did, of course, pain howled through me. I’d been suffering all day and all night, but it was only now that I felt it like a blunt knife tearing through tendons and shredding muscles in its path.
I knew she saw because her expression twisted, morphing with concern as I turned around, flopping back against the mattress as the agony of my knee colliding with the bed ricocheted inside me.
As I struggled to get the pain under control, to stop that feeling of drowning, she was there, her hand on my chest, tucked against my side like she was experiencing it too. I thanked God she wasn’t, but sweet fuck, it felt good to have her there. To take my mind off what I was going through.
"Is it always this bad?" she asked after a while, once my breathing had calmed down.
"You mean after I kick the bed with my fucked up knee?" My voice was so deep and so hoarse it sounded like it was being scraped over rough gravel.
"Yeah," she said softly, but there was a small bump in the middle, making it two syllables as she laughed at my phrasing.
It amazed me that I didn’t mind.
The heat of her hand against my stomach was fierce, much like the woman herself.
"It’s always bad," I admitted gruffly, then, I admitted what I never had to my brothers. Not even Conor when I’d showed up at his door and puked all over him. "I-It got me hooked on Oxy, Savannah."
She stiffened, then whispered, "Oh, Aidan, I’m so sorry. I thought you looked thinner. I thought it was from the pain.
"No one knows what really happened, trust me I researched as much as I could after the shooting, but everyone knows you’ve been limping ever since. Have you only just detoxed?"
There was no accusation in her voice, no pity either, just sympathy. It swaddled me, comforted me, let me relax and eased up the tension inside me which, miracle of miracles, diminished the pain a little.
"I’m forty-one days clean."
"Oh, dear, you’re not supposed to have sex—"
I snorted. "In what world?"
"When you get clean. The NA program says you shouldn’t do it. You can switch addictions."
Arching a brow at her, I asked, "Who was hooked? Your dad or brother?" There was no way she knew that unless someone in her family had been through the program, and as they were rockstar royalty, it wasn’t that much of a leap. Not unless she’d researched it for an article, of course.
Her nose crinkled. "Dad. Erm, Gerry was hooked on coke for a while after his wife was murdered, and Camden had a little problem with weed before gigs. Then, Aspen got hooked on speed for dieting." She huffed out a laugh. "Drugs are a part of the lifestyle."
"So you’re a pro, huh?"
"By proxy," she teased. "I don’t know as much as my mom, but I know enough to know there’s no sex for, like, a year. She told me she had to buy sex toys to get through it."
My brows rose. "You talk about that with your mother?"
Savannah laughed. "Just wait until you meet her." Jesus, she sounded so assured, so confident that would happen. It made me tighten my arm around her as she explained, "Mom’s a sex therapist."
"She is?"
"Yep. She practices under her maiden name though or she’d never have any patients" Her giggle set my world alight. "We’re very okay with sex in my family. You have to be when you’re on the road.
"Before I was eight, I saw so many groupies giving the band and the roadies BJs just to get backstage that I could have given a class on how to do it the right way."
I tensed. "As much as my dick looks forward to that lesson, that’s all kinds of wrong."
"It’s the life. I hated it. Camden isn’t the only one with a voice, but I avoided that like the plague. I couldn’t cope with it as an adult as well."
"You can sing?" I cocked a brow at her. "Really?"
"Really." She shot me a smug look. "I’m a mezzo soprano."
The choir boy in me was very impressed. "You’ll have to sing for me some time."
She snorted. "What? When I could be sucking you off?"
I laughed, amazed that I had it in me to do so after that blast of excruciating agony that would normally have me reaching for three Oxy, never mind one.
"You have a point."
"I’m smart, you know?" She winked at me.
My laughter died down into a grin but I admitted, "I attended some NA meetings before I decided to get clean, then I realized it wasn’t feasible. I knew my brothers had their crew on me, saw them a few times, and I knew that if I carried on, it might attract attention from other people.
"I’m amazed it didn’t hit any social media, to be honest." I shrugged as I tipped my head back to stare up at the ceiling. "The safest way, not just for me but the people at the NA meetings, is to do it myself."
"You went cold turkey without going to rehab?"
"Don’t sound so awestruck," I said wryly. "It wasn’t impressive."
"I know how hard addictions are to fight. I’m proud that you made it this far." Her hand patted my chest. "I’ll do anything I can to help, and you’ll need it, Aidan. Doing without NA meetings is going to be tough."
Savannah talked like she was sticking around for the long haul, but it seemed as insane as me thinking that last night’s kill would be my final one.
Processing her words, I fell quiet and, to be honest, it was good to just lie there. Her at my side. It helped. I had to accept that.
"Were you really mad at me?"
"When you ghosted me?"
"I wouldn’t call it that."
"I frickin’ would. And bet your ass I was." She heaved a sigh. "God save me from a man who’s trying to protect me from myself. As if I don’t have a brain of my own to tell me that I’m making a massive mistake."
A chuckle gusted from my lips. "Thanks?"
"You’re welcome. You’ll be the biggest mistake of my life," she said softly. "That’s what Mom always says about Dad. I never understood it until you."
I swallowed. "How long have they been together now?"