Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,19

burning off of him.

He stood up, leaning across the table and gripping my face in both of his hands. "I'm sorry we were wrong, but I'm not sorry you're mine. I'll never apologise for that." He released me and I leaned back in my chair with my lips parting. I didn’t know how to feel about that, only that my heart beat wildly like an untamed creature in my chest. I was hot and angry and hurt and confused.

I pushed out of my seat, looking from him to Saint with my lungs labouring. I glanced at Monroe, finding his eyes flaring with rage on my behalf and I drew on that passion in, letting it fill me up. I turned my back on them, striding away to Blake's room without a word. I may have gotten even for everything they’d put me through, but I would always just be their little possession. Did Saint really care about keeping me so much that he'd put himself in front of a car for that purpose though? Or had Kyan wet himself in blood, incriminated himself time and time again for the sake of his precious Night Bound pet? Their ownership of me bordered on obsession if that was the case, but if it wasn't that, then it meant they cared. Truly cared. And that frightened me in a way I wasn't prepared to face right now.

I knocked on the door and when Blake didn't answer, I pushed it open. I found him sitting on the end of his bed, his hands fisted in his hair as he hunched over his knees.

"Blake," I said gently, knowing the feel of the twisting, writhing creature in him that was grief. It was too familiar an enemy.

"I hurt you, I fucking brought you out to that grave I dug in the woods... I can't live with what I've done to you," he gritted out and a chill rippled through my blood.

Did I forgive him? …Yes. I did. I had sated my revenge and I'd seen the hurt in him. I'd destroyed the man who had killed my father. I could understand the hate Blake had aimed at me the day he'd stood above me with a gun in his hand. He hadn't seen an innocent girl standing in that grave, he'd seen his mother's death staring back at him and he’d wanted to avenge it.

I moved forward, pushing my hands into his black hair and forcing his own out of it, trying to make him look up until slowly, he did. I kept my hands tight in his hair and a magnetic, desperate energy twisted through the air between us.

"You already knew I wasn't responsible," I said.

"But thinking your dad was guilty helped me justify it still. If only a little," he rasped.

I lowered myself into his lap, wrapping my legs around him and brushing my lips against the corner of his mouth. "Hate is blinding."

"I never hated you," he admitted, giving in to my touch as he locked his arms around me and crushed me close. "I wanted to though, so bad that I convinced myself I did. But I don't hate you. I love you, Tate. I fucking love you. And I'd let you go if I was better, it's what you deserve. They say that's what love is. But it's not for me. My love is selfish and dirty and I will do whatever it takes to keep you right here." His mouth was suddenly on mine and I drowned in his kiss, soaking in the perfect heat of his tongue and the way the world faded around me. How everything was forgotten in that single, gleaming moment of light.

My golden boy was here with me now, the true soul that lived within this dark and monstrous exterior that had grown on him like a second skin. He was both light and dark colliding and every inch I claimed of him, it seemed more of the dark receded.

My hands slid beneath the hem of his shirt and I tugged it off of him, drowning in the feeling of his skin against mine. He undressed me slowly, dutifully, worshipping every inch of my body that he uncovered with kisses and caresses that had me panting and trembling in his arms.

When we were finally free of our clothes, our bodies slid together in this natural, perfect way and I could feel the depths of those words he’d spoken to me as he showed me how