When She Falls (The Fallen, #3)

by Gabrielle Sands

As soon as I removed my hand, she sank her surprisingly sharp teeth into my forearm. I remember staring into those stormy-gray eyes as she drew blood and thinking, “Fuck, this woman is beautiful.”

Gentlemen don’t look at engaged women the way I look at Gemma Garzolo.

“Is that how you talk around your father?” “You’re not my father.” “No, but I’ve been called daddy on occasion.”

I glance over my shoulder to where Gemma is standing. Whenever she’s around, I feel an inexplicable need to know exactly what she’s doing.

I roll my eyes so hard I’m afraid they might get stuck facing the back of my head. “The only effect you have on me is indigestion.”

Because the truth is, he nailed something on the head. I don’t know if the fire is real. All I know is that it only really started to come out after I met him.

She says it like the idea of me having a mother is impossible to comprehend. She probably thinks I was forged in the depths of hell.

“Since you seem so fucking good at bending to your parents’ will, let’s see how well you bend to mine.”

“You should thank God that your loyalty will never require you to sell your body to another. That Damiano will never ask you to let a stranger take you home and spend years pumping you full of his children.”

“If your fiancé knew how feral you are, he’d demand a refund,” he growls. His face is so close, I can make out a tiny scar on his right cheek. “He thinks he bought himself an obedient wife, when what he’s really getting is a brat.”

Well, no matter. I’ll find out who it was, and I’ll make them pay. Now that I’m here, no one’s going to touch a hair on her head.

If she was engaged to me, I wouldn’t squander a single second. She’d be glued to my side. If she wanted to eat, I’d feed her. If she wanted to sit, it would be on my lap. If she wanted to shower, I’d wash every inch of that perfect skin and then dirty her up again.

“I don’t want to be your first, Peaches. I want to be your last. And I don’t want your fucking virginity. I just want you.”

When we’re far away from here, I’ll make her understand that her place is with me. That girl is mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.

The longer we spend together, just the two of us, the more certain I am. I’m going to build a life with her.

“Gemma, none of it matters. Until I met you, I didn’t even realize how fucking hollow my life has been. For the past decade, I’ve lived to serve Damiano, and I did it willingly. It gave me purpose and meaning. But it’s never made me truly happy.” “And I do?” His gaze sparks. “You make me so fucking happy that I feel like a new man.”

“You are the air I breathe. You are the ground that keeps me standing. Without you, I’m nothing, Gemma.”