Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,20

earlobe.

I tensed at the touch. “Y-Yes. I didn’t get into any trouble.”

“That’s what I like to hear. And you didn’t tell your mom or dad about our little conversations, did you?”

My bottom lip trembled. “N-No.”

“Good girl. I think you deserve a little present.”

Horror whispered through me. “N-No, it’s okay, Uncle Kevin, I don’t want one.”

“Sure you do,” he purred, and his hand went to the top of the blanket, and with inexorable strength, he fought my grip on it, all with a dreamy smile on his face as he started to drag it down—

“No!” I screamed, jerking immediately awake. Horror whipped through me as fast as relief did, but it didn’t stop me from howling out my terror.

I thrashed at the covers that shouldn’t be on me, needing out of them, needing to get out of bed, needing to be anywhere but fucking here, and then, I felt a hand at my back and a growled, “What the fuck?” and twisted around to slap at the intruder.

I didn’t care that, consciously, I knew Kevin had been dead for nearly twenty goddamn years, he was alive.

In bed with me.

I screamed louder, hitting out, lashing at the predatory cunt in an effort to get him away from me, and then, I registered something.

The scent of man. The scent of soap. Of musk and sandalwood. An essence that was almost like incense.

I froze, because only that smell ripped the past from my mind, and shrouded me in the present.

My skin was clammy with terror and fury, my heart was racing like I’d been doing the tango on a spinning bike, and there was a wildness to my mind that made me understand how my brother, Nyx, could go out and kill people.

But at Cruz’s scent, it tore through the memories, and needing more of that smell, needing it to overtake me, I hurled myself at him.

He didn’t expect it. He was tense, and I knew he thought I was going to attack him still, but when I melted into him, sinking into him like syrup into steaming hot pancakes, he relaxed too, and his arms came around me.

I didn’t think I’d like that. To be touched. Not so soon after—

Only I did.

I loved it.

He held me so tightly, so fiercely, it was like he wanted to let go as little as I wanted to be released.

His mouth brushed over my temple, his lips rubbing there as he buried his nose in my hair, and I just shoved my face into his inked throat, uncaring that my breath made us both sweaty, just needing more of that ‘clean man’ smell in my nose.

“It’s okay, Indy. I won’t let any cunt hurt you.”

The words should have been ridiculous. I didn’t need a man to look after me, but Cruz’s words were nuttier still because we were fuck buddies. Sure, he spent the night, but that didn’t mean anything.

We were fuck buddies.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Only trouble was, he meant it. He meant those crazy, impossible words. He wanted to protect me, but he couldn’t.

It was impossible.

I shook my head. “You can’t protect me from the past.”

Tension hit him, but he was slow in responding, just carried on stroking my hair in a way that should have reminded me of Kevin but didn’t.

It felt… good.

It connected me with him in a way I didn’t realize I needed.

“What were you dreaming of?”

“I think you know,” I rumbled bitterly, because every Satan’s Sinner knew the sorry tale of my family history.

Uncle Kevin messed with my elder sister Carly from a young age. When she couldn’t take it anymore, when Kevin’s abuse amped up after she protected Nyx from him, she killed herself, which sent my eldest brother down the rabbit hole of insanity.

Ever since, he’d been slaughtering pedophiles like they were terrorists in a mission on Call of Duty.

The Sinners knew that, helped out, even. And me, in the aftermath, I was the one who tattooed a skull on his back. A tag, a trophy of another kid fucker biting the dust. In the most painful way possible.

“I-I didn’t think you were—”

When his voice waned, I started to pull away, expecting his disgust, his revulsion… only, I didn’t get it. He didn’t let me move away, clung harder to me in fact.

“I was,” I said miserably.

“This is why you can’t sleep, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “The dreams… they’re bad.”

“You’ve been sleeping well with me. For the most part,” he pointed out softly, not referencing the time I’d slapped him and