Page 98 of Havoc

“I’ve loved you since the Fourth of July,” I confess.

She snorts with disbelief. “You have not.”

“No?” I grab her by the hand and pull her toward the bedroom. She digs in her heels and whines my name as I tug her along. When I open the dresser’s top drawer and lift out a clear baggie filled with the rocks she collected when we were at the Death Star, she hitches in a breath. “Then why, when you called that night and told me someone was in Jester’s house, was my first thought to get there to protect you? Not Faith. Not Jester.You, Duchess. I was…scared…you were in danger. That’s why I killed the motherfucker that night. I thought he was going to hurt you. I loved you all this time. I just hadn’t realized it.”

Oh, Christ.

“Why are you crying?”

She grabs the bag and cradles the rocks like they’re a sack of diamonds. “Because I wish my dad could have met you. I wish he could have seen how happy you make me.”

I kiss the tip of her nose. Brush my lips over hers. “He sees, Duchess. He knows.” I graze my teeth down her neck. “But he better have his eyes closed because I’m about to do filthy things to you.”

Kerri’s laughter is musical. It fills the house.Shefills the house. Before her, it was mine and Discord’s idea of what a home should be, and then she came and made it a reality. She brought her special brand of warmth into my life and made me want to be a better man. I’ll never be a good man. I’m a criminal. An outcast. I’m an Unholy. An enforcer. I do terrible things to bad people. But, for the first time since I was a kid, I don’t feel dead inside. I’m not compelled to harm myself to watch myself bleed. If the urge rises in me, I have Kerri at my side to pull me out of the darkness.

Because she’s my light.

My sunshine.

My duchess.