Broken Vow (Brutal Birthright, #5)

by Sophie Lark

This one is for all my sexy, brilliant lawyer ladies, especially Jeanne, Tia, Reb and Logan. I know you will catch all my mistakes and I love you for it 5535756856 Xoxo

I’d respect him more if he were an honest asshole instead of a fake nice guy.

“Forgetting a debt doesn’t mean it’s paid.” Or “There’s no such thing as bad publicity, except your own obituary.”

My love for my family is like the roots of an oak tree. A part of the tree, necessary for life. It’s always been there and it always will be.

“IF YOU DROP ONE GODDAMN STEP, PRIVATE, I WILL KICK YOU IN THE BALLS SO HARD YOU’LL SING LIKE MARIAH CAREY!” Price knew how to motivate a guy.

“I know how you treat your cousins where you come from.”

“Chow time?” I say. Riona checks her watch. “I’m meeting Nick for dinner.” “Who’s Nick?” “My boyfriend,” she says primly. “Can’t wait to meet him.” She frowns. “You’re not coming.” “Sorry, darlin.’ I’m your bodyguard. That means anywhere you go, I go too.”

“‘Course, if you fuck up at your job, the worst you’re gonna do is kill some granny on your table,” Raylan says casually. “You don’t have to worry about watching all your colleagues, the anesthesiologists and nurses and other doctors, get captured and tortured and have their heads cut off. Or get blown to pieces right next to you. You don’t have to worry about dying yourself.”

Raylan smiles. “I get it. I spoil the romantic ambiance. I bet Nick is a real charmer when it’s just the two of you.” There’s no edge to his words. If I’d only just met him, I’d think he meant it sincerely enough. But already, I’m getting to know Raylan enough that I catch the hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t like Nick. And he doesn’t give a damn if I know it.

All that order makes me wonder. In my experience, when somebody clings that tightly to a sense of control, it’s because something happened to them at some point in their lives that made them feel powerless.

Again, I feel that flood of anger that a man put his hands on this woman. Riona is desperate to seem strong and independent. But the truth is she’s fragile in the way that all women are fragile—smaller than men and vulnerable to violence.

I have a sister. I’d fucking kill anyone who tried to touch her. And I feel that same drive to protect Riona. To keep her safe. Not just because Dante asked me to. Because she needs it. She needs my help.

“I’m here,” I tell her again. “No one’s goin...

Raylan yanks me back again. When I try to shove him once more, he grabs me by the face and kisses me. It’s a rough kiss, his black stubble scratching my face. It’s hard and violent, and I can taste the salt of his sweat. I wrench away from him and slap him across the face. “Don’t you fucking kiss me!”

He grabs me by my ponytail and kisses me again, even harder. He lets go of me and we pull apart, staring at each other and panting audibly. My heart is hammering against my ribs like I’m still on the treadmill. I can practically hear his doing the same. We both know we crossed a line. Actually, we jumped over the line with both feet. I can’t look him in the eye.

She needs somebody who can make her laugh. Who can help her relax a little. Not someone who’s going to amp her up even more.

The fact that this arrogant piece of shit thought that Riona was interested in him, the fact that he followed her into the bathroom and put his hands on her . . . it makes me want to murder him. Just snuff him out of this world.

Dante told me that Nero’s head over heels for a girl he knew in high school—Camille. I thought Nero would be the last person in the world to fall in love, but I guess that’s me instead. Seeing Nero transformed into an almost reasonable human makes me believe that miracles can happen after all. Maybe that’s what it takes: an unexpected pairing. Cal fell in love with the daughter of our worst enemy. Nessa is married to her own goddamned kidnapper. Nero got his heart stolen by a girl he barely noticed in high school. And Dante is back together with the woman who ripped out his heart.

Nero reminds me of the Cheshire Cat—he’ll respond to questions, but he doesn’t give a damn if you understand his answers.

“Camille and I are the same,” he says simply. “Not in circumstances or experiences. Not on the outside. But in the things that matter, we’re aligned. What we care about. What we want. What we feel.”

”There’s the parts that are the same and the parts that fill up the holes in each other. You don’t know what’s missing inside of you until you find it in someone else.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a more desperate moment. I could hear the glass of the balcony doors cracking above us. I could feel the fragile sheet tearing in my hands under our combined weight. I could feel Riona’s arms slipping from around my neck. I thought I was going to drop her. I thought we might both burn in the inferno.

I’m fucking furious at this Djinn, this boogeyman stalking us. Part of me wants to stay in Chicago and track him down, even if it means setting a trap and staking it out for days. But I can’t do that with Riona—my number one priority has to be keeping her safe. And that’s what I’m going to do.

Raylan looks over at me, thick black eyebrow cocked. He reaches over and twists the knob to turn up the

That’s another thing nobody does anymore—no one waits for a letter from the Postman. But the cheerful, wistful tone of the song is as relatable as ever. And the upbeat piano riff. It makes me want to shimmy my shoulders like Nessa and I used to do. Especially as Raylan turns the music up even louder and drums along to the beat on the steering

I can’t help smiling. I sing along for a couple bars, not caring that I’m shit at carrying a tune. Raylan laughs and turns the music up more. He doesn’t know the lyrics, but he do...

It only lasts for two minutes. Those old Motown songs are short. The song switches over to something else I don’t recognize, and Raylan turns the volume down again. We’re driving in silence once more. But we’re both

Southern hospitality can be a lot. It’s warm and welcoming but also overwhelming and smothering when you’re not used to it.

I’ve never felt anything like this. A lot of the things I do for pleasure—swimming, running—are meant to calm me down. Put me in a zen state. This is the opposite. I feel enlightened. I feel alive. I feel terrified and exhilarated and thrilled, all at once.

I can see every golden hair on Penny’s smooth coat, every blade of bright green grass, every bird soaring overhead. I can smell the trees and the grass and even Raylan’s skin more acutely than ever.

If Dante is a bull, then Raylan is a stallion.

Raylan says, in his deep, commanding voice, “Take off your clothes.” He’s never ordered me around before. Nobody orders me around.

But then Raylan takes a step toward me, and more gently—in the same tone he used with Penny—he says, “Come on. Strip down. Get in the water. You’ll like it.” And like he’s fucking hypnotized me,

Raylan is a professional. He’s my bodyguard. That’s all, that’s it. He knows I don’t want anything else . . . But of course, that’s a fucking lie. I want him. I want him right now. It’s all over my face. I can’t hide it.

He scares me. My only protection is pretending I don’t want this. Pretending I’m committed to another man. But I can’t lie to Raylan. He’s too honest, too open. And too damn perceptive. He’ll know if I lie. It’s pointless.

“I broke up with him.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” Raylan growls. “I wanted you to think I was taken,” I confess. What the fuck am I doing? Why am I admitting that? “Why?” Raylan says. I lick my lips, tasting the cool, clear river. “You scare me.”

“This . . . scares me,” I say, gesturing between the two of us.

He says, “I told myself I wouldn’t kiss you again without your permission.” I swallow hard. “But that was a stupid fucking promise.” He grabs my face between his hands, and he kisses me hard, harder even than he did in the gym.

I kiss him back, my hands thrust into his thick, black hair. His hair feels hot from the sun, thick and coarse and alive like animal fur. The scent of his skin is sharp and wild.

Quite honestly, I’m a selfish lover, doing only what I personally like. I don’t get down on my knees and suck men’s cocks—that would be degrading. I let them worship me, but I don’t respond in kind.

With Raylan, I have no pride. He’s unleashed a hunger in me that I never knew before. I’m fucking wild for him. I would do anything for him right now. I want to taste him, touch him, lick him absolutely everywhere. I want him like I’ve never wanted anything before.

Raylan rolls on top of me, kissing me. I can taste my pussy on his lips, and I’m sure he can taste his cum in my mouth. This is totally unsanitary—something that would disgust me usually. But I do not give one single fuck. I’m still in a state of blissful eroticism, where everything is sexy to me and nothing seems wrong.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God,” I moan. Raylan says, “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”

My head is buzzing on the ride back to the house. That was . . . so much more than I expected. I knew that Riona had a whole lot of something bottled up inside of her. Anger, or determination, or something . . . But I had no idea she’d be so fucking wild. She was raw and primal. Ten times sexier than I expected. And that body . . . fucking hell.

Like a goddess made flesh for the very first time. And like a goddess, she had a kind of terrifying intensity. Her skin was paler than normal from the cold water. Next to that, her red hair and green eyes looked as vivid as a venomous snake. Maybe more Medusa than Aphrodite. I would have been intimidated if I wasn’t so fucking aroused. I had to splash myself with the cold water to keep my cock only semi-hard. Because Riona naked was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

I clarified the little matter of the ex-boyfriend—for Riona’s benefit, not because I gave a fuck about the surgeon. I knew from the second I met him that he wasn’t the right man for her. He didn’t have a fraction of the strength it takes to tame a woman like Riona. To grab hold of her and force her to respect you.

Riona’s a fighter. She’s driven to lock horns with any man who tries to assert his power over her. She won’t be taken gently.

Hearing that she had already broken up with him told me everything I needed to know. I knew that Riona wanted me, whether she’d admitted it to herself or not.

So I grabbed her and kissed her and buried my face in that sweet shell-pink pussy with its tuft of wild red hair. It was intoxicating. She tasted sweet and spicy, like cinnamon. I could feel her responding to me immediately, her body betraying any restraint she tried to maintain.

And the way she sucked my cock . . . good god, it was like she was starving. Like she needed my cum to live. I never would have thought she’d let go like that. I thought it might take months to dig down to that kind of ferocity. But ...