instead.
My hands slid around her waist and I leaned closer to her so that the raindrops which ran around the back of my head fell down and splashed against her cheeks, her nose, her lips.
"I can't try and pretend that I'm not the man I am, Tatum," I growled.
"I never asked you to."
I paused as I considered that, and I realised it was true. I'd assumed the desire she showed for me had come with the caveat that she expected me to change if we acted on it, but she'd never once said that.
"It took a long time to turn me into this monster you know. And I don't think I'll ever stop being him now,” I told her.
"Saint, I don't think you're-"
"I'm sorry, Tatum. For all of it. And for none of it. Sometimes I can see what I am as clearly as I can now and I know that the things I do, the things I've done are unforgivable. But I also know that being that man is all I know how to be. And I'm not going to have some epiphany one day where I fall in love with a girl and realise the error of my ways and dance off into the sunset. My version of a happily ever after is never going to fall into a nice, neat little box that can be tied off with a pretty bow and have me making some girl's dreams all come true."
"I never said I wanted a happily ever after or a Prince Charming," she replied with just as much conviction as me. "I said that I was yours. All four of you. I swore to be your Night Bound. What that means is up to all of us. And right now, I'm not hating it the way I once did."
I released a long and steady breath, leaning forward until my forehead pressed to hers and inhaling heavily as I dug deep to regain some level of control over myself.
I dropped my hands to Tatum's thighs and lifted her out of the freezing lake water until she wound her legs around my waist and tightened her grip on my neck to hold herself up.
"Saint, I really don't think you should be lifting-"
"Don't tell me what to do, siren, or I'll do a whole lot worse than spank you in the morning when I'm ready to face punishing you again."
Tatum swallowed thickly, leaning back so that she could look at me as I carried her out of the lake in the rain and strode up the beach towards the others where they still waited. My ribs were doing a whole lot more than aching now, but I didn't care. I wasn't putting her down until we were back inside and out of this storm.
"Are you good now?" Kyan asked me, eyeing me like I was a wild animal who had escaped from the zoo and gone on a rampage.
"I'm good," I replied in a clipped tone, walking between the three of them and noting Monroe's glare coupled with the way he looked at me carrying Tatum in my arms.
I was well accustomed to my own jealousy by now and if I wasn't mistaken then I was seeing more than a flicker of that same emotion in his eyes too. The question was, how far were his fantasies for our girl going? He’d obviously been concerned enough about her to come back here to check on her, and it didn’t take a fool to see the way he watched her all the time.
The three of them formed a ring around me as I strode back to The Temple with Tatum in my arms, but just as I reached the building, I fell still.
The heavy wooden door swung inwards slowly and large, muddy boot prints had been tracked across the flagstones inside.
I stepped over the threshold with Tatum in my arms and slowly lowered her to the ground as the whole fucking world came crashing down on my head.
On all four walls of the central part of the church which made up the living room, some piece of shit had graffitied three giants cocks and the words The Justice Ninja will take payment in your blood in red spray paint.
"No," I snarled, like refusing to believe that any of this was happening would just make it go away.
"I'm going to enjoy killing this motherfucker when we catch him," Kyan said in a low and dark voice which was a promise of