Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy #1)

by Brynne Weaver

“Rowan,” she whispers. “Mine.” Her eyes shine in the moonlight. “Okay.” She nods in my grip. “He’s yours.”

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

But for the next three days, every time I think she might disappear, she proves me wrong.

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

We watch for a moment in silence as Keanu traps a spider under a glass. “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.”

“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.”

“That you’ll probably never meet someone like him again. That he’s probably the only one out there like you. That you could mess it up. Or he could let you down. Or that maybe your friendship could go up in flames. You’re right about all those worries that are circling around in your head. Maybe all of them are true. But maybe it shouldn’t matter, because everyone messes up. We all let each other down once in a while. And sometimes the best things come out of the fire.”

Dark hair. Full lips slanted in a smirk. Tattoos that climb the side of his neck from beneath his collar. His arm is draped over the shoulders of a tiny brunette woman, the rings on his tattooed knuckles glinting beneath her perfect waves. He’s tall and powerfully built. Even with his leather jacket and thick sweater I can tell he’s basically a wall of muscle. And with those dark, predatory eyes that sharpen like a blade set to cut me, I know he’s trouble. Big fucking trouble by the name of Lachlan Kane.

“Touch that fucking table and I will rip your goddamn hands off and use them to wipe my ass until the day I die,” Rowan snarls.

No, Anna. I’m clearly here to die of embarrassment.

I turn the phone off and set it on the coffee table, then drop my head into my palms and hope that they can absorb me into another world. One where I don’t have to feel anything. Because revenge is easy. But everything else is hard.

“I have food, Rowan.” “Good for you. I think that qualifies you as a fully fledged adult.”

if I could touch that dusting of freckles that speckles her skin.

“Something caught your eye, pretty boy?” she asks.

“How long have you been”—her eyes slice up from the cards and roam over me—“pining …?”

Did I ever really free her? Or will I be her destruction?

“You’re beautiful to me,”

“That color doesn’t remind me of eggplant, for what it’s worth. It reminds me of blackberries. The best berry, if you ask me. It reminds me of irises. They have the best scent of any flower. It reminds me of night, just before dawn. The best time of day.”

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

“Something caught your eye, pretty boy?” I whisper. “Yes,” he says, his voice pained. “God, yes, Sloane. All of you.”

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

“You are the thing I most look forward to, Rowan.”

Before you came along, something was missing. You, Rowan. You were missing. You made it safe to feel seen. Safe to play on our terms. Safe to have fun, even though our fun might not be everyone’s idea of a good time.”

There’s no amusement or relief in his eyes, only predatory intensity. He looks at me the way a tiger would a lamb. A meal to be devoured.

“Pick a safe word. Do it now.” I swallow. Hard. “Chainsaw.” His breathy laugh is a burst of warmth against my core. “How fitting, love. 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.”

“Something caught your eye, pretty girl?” Her throat strains as she swallows. I feel the heat of her gaze as it drags up my body to collide with mine. “Yes. All of you.”

He’s in my head. It’s terrifying and exhilarating. I’ve been on my own for so long. And now he’s in every thought like he’s always been here.

He was right when he said there’s no way to hide from him anymore. He didn’t just open my cage, he shattered it, and the first breaths

“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.”

Do you really think I just like you when I framed a drawing you left for me on a scrap of paper you tore from a notebook? The one I hung in the kitchen so I can look at it every day and think of you? Do you think I just like you when I tattoo it on my skin? I play this fucking game every year and tear my heart out watching you walk away, only to do it all over again, and I like you?

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.”

“I’m scared of you destroying me. Me destroying you.”

“Honey, I’ve lived in a literal circus since I was fifteen. I could sleep on the Tilt-A-Whirl if I had to.”

“No, Sloane,” he says. “I’m taking you home. To Boston.”

“You’ll love me someday.” One of my steps falters. Today is that day.

And across the full front of the restaurant, stretching over the door and the awning, a massive sign in block letters. BUTCHER & BLACKBIRD.

“Are you afraid of losing again, pretty boy?” “I’m afraid of losing you.”

“You have never been unlovable. You were just waiting for someone who will love you for who you are, not for who they want you to be. I can do that, if you’ll let me.”

“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.”

“You might be psycho,” I say with a grin as her eyes narrow, “but you’re my psycho, and I’m yours. Got it?”

“You did color,” he whispers, but he still doesn’t let go. I smile in Rowan’s arms. “What can I say, Butcher. I guess you brought it out of me.”