Connor's Claim (Body Count, #2)

by Jolie Vines

She’d liked me. Been kind. Welcoming. Including into her bed. That was the limit of it, though. Love at first sight was my failing. Everly Makepeace had once been my stepsister and my obsession, but never the other way around.

I shouldn’t give a fuck about this woman. She never had about me. She’d been everything to me then nothing, and nothing was where she should’ve stayed.

Fuck him for being here tonight. Fuck him for stealing my thunder and apparently wanting to save her. And fuck me for the twisted thoughts that, even though she’d rejected me, said to my face that no, she didn’t want me, now Everly was in my possession, I was going to bleed out from old wounds when it came time to let her go.

Father saw no reason to shelter me from his activities. I managed his membership and arranged bookings with his favourite sex workers, even ordering the women to his office or our home on occasion. I didn’t like it, but it was him I judged, not them. They were just earning a living.

Father had some kind of deal with Shade, I’d gathered, and that knowledge had driven me to distraction. After all I’d sacrificed. After I’d lost him for the purpose of keeping him safe and earned his hatred in reply. After everything I’d done to set him free, he’d still wound up in my father’s clutches, and that was unbearable.

Cassie spoke. “I’ve got a fast car and no sense of self-preservation. Say the word and I’ll get ye out of here.” Genevieve snapped her head around. “You never offered me an out like that.”

Cassie is the BEST

“I’d say that was the first time kidnapping ever worked for all parties, but Gen arrived at my house with Arran in much the same way. If this is modern-day dating, maybe I should be the one laying traps and readying the duct tape.” Genevieve choked on a laugh.

“I only exist because my da bought prostitutes and deliberately got a handful of them pregnant to make an heir. Because I was a girl, he barely acknowledged my existence.” My heart panged. “That’s awful.” Her shoulder rose in an easy shrug. “He’s dead, and I wipe away my tears on handfuls of his cash while living in his stately home, so who’s laughing now?”

Love her so much

I drove out into the city, putting space between myself and the centre of my world which somehow now contained my previous source of gravity.

“Why did ye choose him over me?” I reached the side of the bed, standing over her. With no bidding, my knife was in my hand. “Why cling to that man, when ye said you’d love me until your last breath?”

Cassie extended a casual arm. “Spy, detective, stalker, the CEO of all things feral and chaotic. I’ll get business cards made.”

Everly was mine now. Every part of her. Asleep was better than awake, at least for what I had in store for her next.

“I own ye now. Just as ye own me. I’ll defend your life with mine and give ye everything ye want. A home, my last name, the blood of anyone who hurts ye. I’ll fucking knock ye up, too. As many times as we want.”

Connor was doing a job and one I saw value in. I couldn’t do what he did. I couldn’t even look. But I respected him, and I agreed that this needed to be done.

“This is me. The rawest form. I stalk the stalkers. I eviscerate the men who hurt. I don’t have the same limits others do, and that includes with ye.” “You’d never harm me.” “Never,” I vowed. “I’ll never let ye go either.”

“Your body is so beautiful. You’re perfect, Everly. I need ye to know that because what I’m going to do next is going to be disrespectful as fuck.”

“Did ye ever see that meme of men writing women? Something like ‘she titted boobily along the hall’? That’s what you’re doing now, titting boobily.”

😂

“I love you so much.” Any reply I could give would be an understatement. “My last breath will be your name.”