Page 94 of Brutal Heir

I roll onto my side to face him. His eyes are closed, lashes dark against flushed cheeks, his face finally free of tension. Peaceful. Like the weight he always carries has been lifted, even if just for a moment.

God, he’s beautiful. Not despite his scars but because of them.

I reach out, fingers ghosting across his chest, tracing a line just beneath the bandage still taped to his ribs. He stirs, eyesfluttering open, trapping mine like he always does without warning or mercy.

His voice is rough with exhaustion and something sweeter. “What are you looking at, Red?”

“You,” I whisper. “Trying to figure out when I stopped being afraid of getting close to you, of this.”

He smirks faintly. “And?”

“I think it was sometime between the kiss after I ran away and the orgasm on the couch.”

A deep, raspy laugh escapes him, and it settles low in my belly. But under the warmth, the joy, the intimacy, there’s still that edge of fear.

Because now there’s no going back. Not for either of us.

And I don’t know if we’ll survive what comes next.

But I know one thing for damn sure: whatever happens now, I’m not walking away without a fight.

“I guess you were right all along, Nurse Rory.” He glances at his still semi-hard dick laying between us. “No problems in that department.”

“You just needed the right woman to wake him up, Rossi.”

He laughs again, and God, that sound warms every inch of me. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’m falling in love with this man. It wasn’t just the best sex of my life. It was the moment I knew, truly knew, I’d fallen for him. Not a fluttery crush. Not a dangerous attraction.But that big, terrifying kind of love. The kind you can’t take back.

Now his finger traces my body, circling my breast then lingers on my tattoo. I know the question will come again, it’s inevitable. I see the way he eyes the butterfly with unrelenting curiosity.

“Are you ready to tell me what this means?” he whispers, his finger still tracing the lines.

“Saor óna slabhraí,” I utter the words in a rough Gaelic, my throat hoarse with emotion. “Free from the chains.”

He stares at me now for a long moment, neither one of us speaking. Then finally, “What are you running from, Red?”

“My past,” I murmur.

“And did it work?”

I nod slowly. “I think so.” If only to fall even deeper into a new darkness. And because that mind-blowing orgasm clearly stole all common sense, I whisper, “It wasn’t onlyyourfirst time back on the horse…”

His dark brows furrow as they raze over me.

“That man…” I pause, sucking my bottom lip between my teeth.

“The one who hurt you?” he growls sitting up, the peaceful, relaxed look in his eye from a moment ago vanishing.

I nod slowly. “You’re the first… after what happened with him.”

His face crumbles, the hard mask he typically wears morphing into something else entirely. “Fuck, Rory, I’m so sorry. I should have realized?—”

“No, there’s nothing to apologize for, you eejit.” I sit up and cradle his cheek in my hand, running my thumb over the soft, new skin. “You helped me get through it. There was a time I was terrified that I would never want to be with a man again. But everything changed when I met you.”

“Really?” A slow smile melts across his lips.

“You made me want things again. Things I thought were long broken and too far gone to ever repair.”

That smile turns rueful as he reaches for my cheek. “Dio, you sound just like me.”