Ryder (Savage Wolves MC) #3

Chapter Eighteen

It'll also make me feel better if I know they're not out there walking free.

We pull down a dirt path and arrive in front of a house, neatly decorated outside. The house itself is dark and rather ominous. My heart rate picks up, knowing that the men who fucked me without my consent, beat me until I was broken and bloody, and belittled me until I was a mess are just beyond those doors, somewhere inside.

"Are you ready for this?" He asked me back at the Den was I sure I wanted to go through with it. Now he's making sure I'm ready to go through with it. I know I can change my mind. I know I can walk away. And he's giving me that out. He's letting me turn my back on this insanity.

There's no way I ever will. "Is anyone ever ready for what's about to happen?"

He looks at me with sympathetic eyes. "I never have been." He places his hand on my cheek and pushes my loose hair away from my face. "To take a life... it's a feeling like none other. It's terrifying. It's messy. It's powerful." He drops his hand and rests it on my waist instead. "Not everyone can handle being a killer. Even if they think they're ready. I just want you to know, if at any point you can't finish what we're starting, I will handle it. No questions asked. No judgement. I've got your back."

I give him a small smile. "Ryder..."

He sighs. "I don't want you to feel like you have to do this just because they hurt you. They hurt all of us. In incredibly different ways than you experienced, but if you can't do it, I gladly will. Because my heart broke for you when I found out what happened. A girl I'd never met." He pulls me into his arms and places both of his hands on the sides of my neck, tilting my head up. "When they told me what happened to Letha's friend from Florida, I was overcome with rage. I wanted to kill them right then and there for hurting a woman. Hurting anyone for that matter. They're disgusting excuses for human beings to do what they did and haven't earned the right to keep breathing."

My eyes soften and my chest expands knowing he was willing to fight for my honor even before we officially met. Reaching my hand up to take his cheek in my palm, I begin rubbing my thumb across the underside of his eye.

My fingertips dip into his hair before sliding to the back of his head and pulling him down until our lips collide. His arms wrap tightly around my waist until he's pulling me up, my legs wrapping around his hips and ankles crossing at his back.

The breath is sucked right from my lungs and our lips move in tandem against one another, my thoughts fading away until I'm consumed with all that is Ryder - Dylan - and what we came here for slips away with the wind.

Pulling back, both of our chests heaving with every barely catchable breath, I look into his eyes, too dark to see the color from the indigo sky above. "I think I love you."

He smirks, holding me tighter. "I thought you'd never admit it."

Slapping his chest, I wipe the smirk off his face with another kiss. "Anything you want to say back to me?" I wait for a response and watch his face as he thinks about it, my anxiety growing.

"Hmm, I would have thought you would have already known," he grins, setting me back down on my feet, "I've been in love with you for ages now. Unconditionally, deeply in love with you, Miss Talia Montgomery."

My cheeks blossom with heat before his lips return to mine.

Reality sets in after a while and I know we can't stand out here all night basking in the afterglow of our commitment. "Can I take a rain check on the rest of this?" I motion between us, leading onto the fact that not only did we almost have sex earlier but we're now officially out in the open in love with each other.