I struggle with the instinct to put on a shirt as she approaches. I’m covered in tattoos and scars, and tattoos that cover uglier scars. Her looking at my naked chest is revealing the dark crevices of my past, and I don’t want to scare her.
“You have a tree tattoo? Or is it a bush?”
“A mulberry,” I explain in a low voice. It covers a nasty scar from the fight that made me a kingpin. “It’s an emblem of Bethnal Green. I had it done when I took over the territory.”
“Oh, they all have meanings?” She gets this curious look in her eyes. Green eyes to go with my territory. As though I needed more signs that this was meant to be.
“Yeah.”
“What are these?” She points at the mulberry fruits and skeleton hands that run down both my arms.
There is no nakedness like someone asking about your tattoos. “Each fruit represents one of my brothers.”
“You have brothers?” She tilts her head like she can’t imagine it.
“Had. They weren’t biological brothers. They were my friends.” I swallow. “I killed them all. There was a difficult transition when the former kingpin was murdered. Not by me,” I hasten to say, an old twinge of hurt in my heart, no more than an echo now. “Shane Bethnal was like a father.”
“Likea father?” Her gaze flicks between examining my body with something like fascination, and looking up into my eyes. “Not your actual father?”
I point at my side.
“Smith?” She runs her hands over the gothic lettering.
“I’m an orphan.” Is it shameful to admit that? Perhaps, but Willow’s face just pinches with sympathy, not disgust. “It was my surname because they couldn’t think of anything else. I was brought up in care.”
“But now your surname is Bethnal? Did you marry?—”
“No.” I quickly cut her off and see relief in the set of her shoulders. Was my little bunny jealous? “I adopted the name when I took over the territory. But I didn’t want to forget.”
“I like that.” Reaching out, she runs her hands over my upper arms, and continues to explore, circling me. There are some tattoos I’d really rather not explain, but I do. Detailing the kills and the deals, the small triumphs and the losses as I climbed my way up to where I am now.
“There’s a blank here.” She’s made her way around and stands before me again, tracing the space over my heart. The dip of my sternum and most of my left pectoral is only covered with dark hair. No ink.
“I never found anything I want to put there,” I tell her rawly. “Until now.”
Her fingers stop moving, and she takes a breath, then pauses, as though she wants to speak.
“A tree would fit.” I didn’t know I was waiting for her. But it never felt right to get a tattoo in that spot, and now I know why. It’s for my girl.
“Another mulberry?” she asks tentatively.
“I was thinking of a willow,” I murmur. “With a pair of animals under it.” I push my hand into her hair, and she moans as I lower my head, breathing in her sweet strawberry scent. “Maybe a wolf and a little bunny.”
Leaning forwards, I press a kiss onto her sleek hair. “I want to breed you, like the little bunny you are. One baby, then another. Then a third, a fourth.”
Her lips part, but there’s hope in her eyes as she gazes up at me.
“Do you want that? A big family that we love and raise?”
She nods eagerly. “I’ve always felt like it should have been like that for me, but…”
“Same.” I never had a family, and she, for all that she’s a Maldon and had three brothers, didn’t either. “We’ll have a family who is cherished and protected.”
Deliberately, I run my hand down her side, familiarising myself with every inch of her. “I want to know you better than you know yourself. I’m obsessed with you, Willow.”
I almost kiss her mouth, but fuck, as I’m a whisper away from her lips, I remember. Firsts. Only firsts.
For now.
