Page 7

He wanted to tell someone about Savage and his club. He wanted to share the betrayal of losing his brothers and the loneliness that he felt afterward, but going down that road never ended well. So he shut it down before it could start.

“Trust me,” he said roughly. “You really don’t.” Something flickered across her face then. Not fear, but recognition. Like sheunderstood exactly what it meant to carry things too ugly to say out loud.

And suddenly, Butcher knew two things with absolute certainty. First, Princess was absolutely running from something, and it was bad enough to put that look in her eyes. And second, whatever brought her to his town wasn’t finished with her yet.

He didn’t sleep much that night. It wasn’t because of her sleeping in the room just down the hallway—at least, that’s what he told himself anyway. Butcher sat on the back porch with a beer in his hand and the Mississippi night wrapped around him thick and humid. The porch light buzzed overhead while crickets screamed from the tree line, but his attention kept drifting back inside the house. Toward the closed guest room door and the woman sleeping under his roof, and that irritated the hell out of him.

Ten years alone had trained him out of habits like this. He didn’t worry about people anymore. Didn’t think about them after they left his line of sight. Life was easier that way—cleaner. But Princess had walked into his life like a lit match tossed into gasoline, and now his instincts wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

She was lying. Not directly about anything in particular, but consistently. Every answer she gave was polished, controlled, and measured. It was as though she had spent years learning how to reveal just enough truth to keep people from digging deeper. He recognized that, too, because he did the exact same damn thing.

Butcher tipped the beer back, his eyes narrowing into the darkness. She had talked about Chicago, and that little slipearlier stuck with him. Most people with money ended up in places like Miami or New York when they ran. Somewhere flashy. Somewhere easy to disappear. But she ended up stranded in a tiny Mississippi town, looking like she hadn’t slept properly in days. And he was sure of one thing from personal experience—nobody landed here by accident. Not unless they were desperate or hiding.

The screen door creaked softly behind him. His body reacted before his brain did, shoulders tightening slightly as he turned his head. Princess stepped onto the porch quietly, barefoot again, and the T-shirt that he had lent her was hanging off one shoulder enough to show her smooth skin beneath the porch light. Christ—seeing her like that wasn’t helping anything.

“You always sit outside looking miserable at two in the morning?” she asked softly.

Butcher looked back out toward the trees. “Usually,” he admitted.

She hummed as though she believed him, and after a few seconds, she lowered herself into the chair beside him without asking permission. That shouldn’t have felt intimate, but somehow it did. Neither of them spoke right away, letting the silence stretch out between them, but unlike earlier, it didn’t feel uncomfortable. Princess tucked one leg beneath herself in the chair, staring out into the darkness.

“It’s weird here,” she admitted finally.

Butcher snorted quietly. “That bad, huh?”

“No,” she said after a second. “It’s just a lot quieter than where I’m from.” He understood that too well.

“When I first got here,” he said slowly, “the silence drove me insane.” Her eyes slid toward him. That was the first real thing he had admitted to her, and he could tell that she noticed.

“You came here alone?” she asked.

Butcher’s jaw flexed. That was a dangerous question, but he still answered it anyway. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“Why were you alone?” she asked. He wanted to tell her that it was because he destroyed the only family he ever had, and his brother died hating him. Or that he was too damn stubborn to stay and too damn broken to go back to Huntsville. Instead, he shrugged, letting her believe that he didn’t know why he was alone.

“I just needed a fresh start,” he said, giving her a partial truth.

Princess watched him for a long moment, like she was trying to decide how much of that she believed. “Did it work?”

Butcher looked down at the beer bottle in his hand before answering. “Some days.” His honesty seemed to surprise both of them, but Princess looked away first. He found that fact to be interesting.

“You know,” she said quietly, “for a guy named Butcher, you’re surprisingly decent.”

He barked out a rough laugh. “There it is.”

“There’s what?” she innocently asked.

“The insult hidden inside the compliment,” he said. A tiny smile tugged at her mouth and disappeared just as fast, but he caught it. She looked younger when she smiled—less haunted. Less sharp around the edges, and even more beautiful, if that were possible. That realization hit him square in the jaw. Absolutely fucking not.

Butcher leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “You should get some sleep.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you kicking me off your porch?”

“No,” he breathed. “I’m going to bed before I make a bad decision.” The second the words left his mouth, he felt the air shift around them. It became hotter, if that was possible, andPrincess went still beside him. Butcher cursed himself internally for being too honest with her.

Her voice came quieter this time. “What kind of bad decision?” she asked.

Jesus Christ. He turned his head slowly, meeting her eyes fully for the first time since she stepped outside, which was a big mistake, because she looked softer in the moonlight—and entirely too tempting.