Buckled (Trails of Sin, #2)

by Pam Godwin

man cannot be good unless he possesses the capacity to be evil. Decency is a choice.

I want what Jake had with Conor. I fucking crave it. He and I might be different in many ways, but we share one thing in common. We don’t just love. We love hard, with every bone, sinew, and breath in our bodies.

There’s an air about them, a confidence, an authoritative intensity that grabs a woman by the ovaries and reduces her to her most primitive core.

I don’t care about her secrets. I don’t even care about the sex. Not in the way I care about her.

She’s everything I’ve been waiting for and nothing like I expected.

I made a deal with her that I have no intention of honoring. Because I can’t fathom going back to a life without her. The notion is so bleak and horrifying it fills me with desperate rage. I will never let her go.

All I can do is hold on, shredding my vocal chords as I scream. I scream his name. I scream for a god. Maybe they’re one and the same.

He shackled my heart with his, and I wish he would lose the key to that lock. The steady beat of his love against mine empowers me, strengthens me, makes me believe that as long as we’re together, it’s enough. We’re enough.

What kind of man am I? I think I’m the wrong man. I’m John Holsten’s son. The selfish liar. Coldblooded murderer. Ruthless lover. But she makes me want to be the right man. Selfless. Vulnerable. Buckled on my knees beneath the trust in her huge blue eyes. She makes me want to be the man deserving of that precious trust.

“Take your space, your time, whatever you need. But I won’t let you take forever. That belongs to me. Your forever is mine.”

Love hurts. It’s an emotional abuser, insidious and manipulative, charming its way into unsuspecting hearts before beating the ever-loving shit out of the defenseless insides.

Love heals. It’s a universal balm that repairs fractures, soothes pain, and stitches the heart into wholeness again.

The whole damn world should stop on its axis and take note, because no man alive knows how to love a woman like he does.

The feelings I harbor for her will never end. Not when my body ceases to function. Not when my soul releases for whatever comes next. Even in death, I won’t let her go.

A hard fuck, a vanilla tumble, a red welt, a tender kiss—I love her in all the colors and levels of intensity, and she lets me. I’m a lucky son of a bitch.