Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)

by Brynne Weaver

“I didn’t gouge them out, Butcher. I plucked them. Delicately. Like a lady.”

“That woman you were watching…?” My fingers tighten around his throat as he desperately nods. “She is mine.”

I’m 100% positive that I hate you And I’m 100% positive you’ll love me one day

“He could come to my house and catch spiders any day,” she says as she twinkles her fingers toward the screen. “Dark and broody and grumpy? Sign me up.” “I’m pretty sure you’ve said that every one of the two hundred times we’ve watched this.” “It’s peak Keanu. You can’t blame me.”

“No one competes with Sloane.” Rowan’s eyes anchor on mine, dragging me into the depths of a navy sea. “She just hasn’t realized it yet.”

What if I’m unlovable? What if something unfixable is wrong with me?

“You had to find comfort in being alone because you’ve had no choice. But as much as you like it, you’re also lonely,”

“You’re all the best things to me, Sloane. No matter how many bruises are in your heart or on your skin.”

“I’ve been suffering for four years, Sloane. I’m begging you here. Get in the fucking bath.”

Now be a good girl and find something to grab on to…” he says, then passes one long, slow lick over my center. “…Because I’m about to destroy you.”

“Did I get the raven you left on the table tattooed on my back?” His smile is teasing, but there’s a hint of shyness in it as he finishes my thought. “Yeah. Appears to be the case.”

“I would kill for you, and I have. I would do it again, every damn day. I’d turn myself inside out for you. I would die for you. I don’t just like you, Sloane, and you fucking know it.”

There’s relief knowing I can love and be loved, after years wondering if I was so broken that there was only room for vengeance and loneliness in my heart. And I think I see the release of that burden reflected in Rowan’s eyes, too.

“I fucking adore you, Sloane Sutherland. I wanted you from that first day at Briscoe’s. I have loved you for years. I’m not stopping. Not ever.”