Page 32 of Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

VIOLET

X ’s mom was a tiny woman, but her hug was so tight it felt like it could crush my bones.

It took me by surprise at first, but something inside me, the part that didn’t remember my biological mother and who had never had a foster mother show her any affection, hugged X’s mom right back.

Which made the hug go on for way longer than an introductory embrace should, but I found I couldn’t let her go.

Or maybe we both couldn’t. Because we stood there like that for a really long time, my arms wrapped around her, holding each other while her family watched on with confusion.

But when the woman finally stepped back, there was understanding in her eyes. And something I connected with.

I liked her instantly.

“I’m Jeanie. This is my husband, Lewis.”

X’s dad stood, and I instantly realized where X and his brothers got their height because it certainly wasn’t from their mother. Lewis was very tall and had the long, lean physique of a basketball player.

Lewis offered me a handshake, rather than the hug his wife had, which felt fitting, and then Jeanie went around the room, excitedly introducing me to each member of her family.

She paused when she got to Silas and Grandma Ruth, but they were busy making out, so she just pressed her lips together and tried to school her features into something that wasn’t the pure horror written all over X’s and his brothers’ faces.

I elbowed him gently. “She seems happy,” I whispered to him. “Stop staring.”

“How can you tell?” he muttered back. “Her lips are being devoured by a washed-up football player who I’m ninety-nine-percent sure had a widely publicized case of gonorrhea in high school.”

Grandma Ruth dragged her lips away from her much younger man’s. “He had that taken care of years ago, Knox. And I don’t want to hear any grief about it. We’re both consenting adults.”

X coughed. “Are you sure? Did you check his ID?”

The older woman frowned at him.

He instantly hung his head. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“That’s more like it.” She patted Silas’s cheek, but her words were for her grandson. “Be nice. He might be your new grandaddy.”

X’s mouth dropped open in horror. “The rage is back,” he whispered, pulling me close again.

But Grandma Ruth winked at me, and I suspected the old woman was just having a bit of fun. I couldn’t blame her. She was old, not dead. If she wanted to sit on the lap of a man forty or maybe fifty years her junior, then who were we to stop her?

Plus, I kinda liked having X wrap himself around me like I was his comfort blanket.

He’d been that for me more than once, and I drew just as many good feelings from his scent and the strength of his arms as he was currently getting from me.

Grandma Ruth clapped bony hands together. “Now that everyone is here, how about we get this game night underway?”

I grinned. “We’re playing games?”

Jeanie nodded. “It’s tradition. First Saturday night of every month is game night. She tucked her arm into mine. “You don’t cheat, do you, Violet? We like to run a clean, fair game here.”

I suddenly really wanted to make a good impression on this woman. I didn’t want her to think I was lacking in moral character.

Even though I had sworn to bury the psychopath playing games with us. And I had meant it in the physical way.

“I’m not a cheater,” I promised.

The thought of Levi and Whip suddenly flickered through my mind. Was I cheating? Levi and I had spent the night in bed together, and it had felt like a whole lot more than fucking.

And Whip? Every time I thought about him, something deep inside me yearned for his touch. He felt safe and calm, and I kept turning to him when I was scared.

I knew he wasn’t mine, and yet I didn’t want to give him up.

I had no idea what I was doing with any of these men, but they all knew about each other, and so far, none of them had asked me to choose.

Which was good, because I was pretty sure I couldn’t.

Jeanie winked at me. “Well, that’s a shame, because the rest of us are.”

I laughed at her, and X sat me down onto the floor next to his nephew and sister-in-law and started setting up Monopoly pieces.

I watched on, the family all chattering with each other and laughing when one of X’s brothers accused him of stealing an extra hundred from the bank.

He totally had, I’d seen it too, but when his brother turned to me for confirmation, I shrugged.

“I didn’t see anything. Looked completely legit to me.”

Hendrix just laughed. “You fit right in here.”

I hid a smile, because fitting in with a family, especially one as loud and colorful and fun as the one I’d been introduced to tonight, felt like the biggest compliment in the world.

The game began, and I watched Suzanne from the corner of my eye, her son cuddled up on her lap, her daughter bouncing around the uncles, each of them vying for her attention, X included. Suzanne had gotten to marry into this family.

I wondered if she knew how incredibly lucky she was.

I was dead jealous of her. Of all of them, really.

There was so much love in this room, even though there was also a lot of trash talk, and play fights, too.

I’d never seen anything like it. My only memories of family nights were my foster parents gathering all the kids in the house in the living room to scream about which one of us had drunk their vodka and refilled it with water.

I flinched at the memory of a belt cracking across the backs of my thighs because nobody had owned up. So they’d punished all of us.

I knew it had been Travis who’d done it. I’d seen him drinking with one of his friends after school one day, but he’d let us all take his punishment, and he hadn’t even been a little bit remorseful for it.

I’d been too scared to tell our foster parents who it really was because I knew Travis’s punishment would be worse than a spanking if I tattled.

X’s fingers squeezed the back of my neck, bringing me back into the present. “What’s wrong? We’re winning.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

But I wasn’t. I was triggered by seeing Travis again and I knew it. I hated that he was back, ruining something else for me.

X took another long look at me and threw his Monopoly money down on the board. “We retire. I’m going to give Violet the tour of the house until dinner is ready.”

He pulled me up with him, while his brothers booed him and Grandma Ruth made chicken clucking noises at him, taunting him for being too scared to lose.

X just ruffled her hair like she was a toddler as we walked by, and she swatted at him playfully.

I expected him to take me upstairs and show me his childhood bedroom or something, but he moved through the kitchen that smelled amazing, a big pot of something incredible simmering away on the stove, to the glass back doors.

He opened them, and we stepped out onto a deck. A large table sat in the center, surrounded by at least ten chairs. Fairy lights decorated the rail and lit the way down a set of stairs.

I followed X down them, our feet finding the soft grass of the lawn at the bottom.

“Your family is amazing,” I said into the quiet night air around us.

His thumb stroked the back of my hand. “They’re okay.”

I tugged him to stop. “They’re more than okay. They’re perfect.”

He sighed, focusing on a spot just past my shoulder.

“That’s kind of the problem. They’re all perfect.

And I’m…not.” He dragged his gaze back to mine.

“I love them with all that I have. They’re the only reason I even know what love is.

And I’m not complaining about them at all, because I know your childhood was so much worse…

” He breathed out slowly. “It’s just hard when I’ve spent my whole life keeping secrets from them.

Always censoring myself so I didn’t say something that one of them would find terrifying.

I love them, you know? And the thought of my mother knowing what’s in my head makes me sick. I don’t want her to know any of that.”

Shadows engulfed his face, but the fairy lights left enough of a glow that I could see his expression contort with pain.

“I spent so many years being scared I would hurt one of them. I’m still scared of that. It’s the one thing I’m actually truly afraid of. Hurting them. Hurting you…” He swallowed thickly. “We shouldn’t even be out here alone.”

I laughed. “That’s ridiculous, X. We’re fifty feet away from your family.”

His gaze hardened. “You think I couldn’t snap your neck in the time it would take for them to hear you scream?”

A shiver ran down my spine at the sudden intensity in his eyes.

And I knew without a doubt he wasn’t being dramatic.

He was danger and violence and unpredictability.

And I didn’t care because somewhere along the way, I’d started trusting him with my life. He might be the bad guy, but he was the bad guy I kept running to.

I just needed him to trust himself.

I stared up at him and linked my fingers around his, drawing them up to my throat.

He hissed as he caressed the soft skin there, something deep and guttural that sent ripples of pleasure straight to the spot between my legs.

“Violet,” he groaned, thumbs stroking over every inch. “What are you doing?”

“Trusting you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

He was probably right. I’d seen how he could kill a man. Seen how once he started, he couldn’t stop. He didn’t trust himself, and it was stupid for me to think I knew better.

But I wanted his hands on me.

Wanted to give him that power over me.

Wanted his hand around my throat when he kissed me.

Our gazes met in the dim light, and I was sure mine were begging him for more.

My entire body was on fire. From my toes to my scalp, and all because he was too close, right there, so damn beautiful and funny and sweet and sexy and I wanted him.

He groaned and dragged me against him by my throat, pushing his mouth down on mine. He kissed me deep and slow, even though I wanted it fast and hard.

But I had wanted to give him that control, and now he was taking it in the way he wanted, so I didn’t get a say in the matter.

He led, and I followed.