Page 19 of Savage Craving

“Just go to my room, take me with you, and I can show you something.”

I pushed off the bed, and moved down the hall to his room. I’d been in here plenty, and yet every time it felt so masculine, so very like I didn’t belong in here.

Forbidden.

“Okay.”

“Go to my dresser, and open the second drawer. On the left side, there’s a box.”

I did as he instructed and pulled the wooden box out of the drawer.

“It’s locked.”

“Put it on the bed. The combination is 1206.”

I pushed the numbers to that combination and the lock clicked open.

“Okay, what is 1206?”

I could hear him smiling somehow, “It’s my birthday.”

“What?” I gasped. “For years, Maree has been trying to find that out about you.”

“I know, and you are the only one who knows, so if she finds out I’ll knowyou blabbed.”

I chuckled as I opened the lid of the box, sitting on his bed cross legged. The first thing I saw was a photo of a baby and a beautiful woman.

“Is this your mum?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You wanted to know about me. This is everything I have kept, everything from my youth. Go through it and if you have questions, ask me later. I gotta go.”

I could hear people yelling down the line, and I realised he was probably babysitting some of the rowdier Nomads.

“Okay.”

He hung up and I lifted the photo to look at her. She was gorgeous. He got his eyes from her, but the rest of his face must have been his father. I looked at the next photo and it was of two pre-teen boys outside of an old building, leaning on a brick wall with a plaque that read,Dewesdale Orphanage.

He was an orphan?

I wondered what happened to his mother. It felt very private to be seeing these photos when no one knew anything about him, but he’d told me to. I feltan odd sense of pride that he would allow me to see things no one else was allowed to know about him.

It felt sacred.

As I really looked at the photo, I noticed the boy next to him was familiar.

Viper.

Wow, they really did go way back. I grabbed the photo and headed out to the clubhouse. Viper was sitting on the couch, looking down at his phone. I made my way over to sit next to him and he slowly looked up, a smile spreading over his face.

“Hey.”

I showed him the photo. “Is this you?”

His smile shifted and he took the photo off me before sighing. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you both were orphans,” I found myself saying. “I’m sorry if that’s insensitive.”

“Why’d you go looking through his stuff?” he asked me. He wasn’t accusing me, he was genuinely curious.