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I was too afraid to say anything, to even breathe.
I licked my lips and stood then, wanting to go to him, to check on him. But I stayed in place. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t say anything in response, and instead walked toward the bathroom, turning the light on and standing there a second.
With his back to me, I stared at his leather vest, the patch in the center, the MC logo staring at me almost ominously.
He didn’t move, and so I took a step toward him, and another, and another. My movements were slow and hesitant, fearful almost. How hurt was he? Did everything go as planned? Was Henry actually… gone?
“Butcher?” I was only a foot from him now, could smell the cologne coming from him, but the scent that was stronger than even that was blood. It was a coppery, metallic smell that when I inhaled it coated my tongue, tasting like I’d been sucking on a penny. “Butcher?” I said his name even softer this time, lifted my hand and touched his arm. He was tense, his body rock-hard. He turned around then, and with the light now fully surrounding him, I could get a look at his face.
I gasped at the blood covering his cheeks, splattered on the whiteness of his T-shirt. Not his blood. I knew that without having to ask. I gazed down at his hands, his knuckles battered and bruised, raw and bloody. I thought about how hard he’d have to have been hitting someone for them to be like that.
“Do you see the monster I am?” His voice was hard and scratchy.
Maybe I should have been terrified. Maybe I should’ve run away, left right then and there. But instead, I found myself taking a step closer and lifting my hand, placing it right in the center of his chest, right over the splatter of red blood… right over the death of the man who’d watched my mother died.
“No,” I said softly, maybe too softly for him to hear me. I saw a flicker of something cross over his face, maybe surprise. But he didn’t push me away, didn’t step away from my hold. So I curled my fingers into the material of his shirt and pulled him closer, made him take a step toward me.
“Poppy….” My name was this harsh whisper from his lips, filled with agony. This man had gone out and taken care of my nightmare, extinguished the flame that would’ve threatened to burn me alive. He’d killed for me. And as I looked into his face, all I felt was love. All I felt was appreciation.
All I felt was him.
“I know you want to ask.” His voice was still low, frighteningly so. “Ask me, Poppy. Ask me and I’ll tell you.”
I didn’t answer for a moment, and although I didn’t need to say the words, because he knew what I was going to ask, what I wanted to know, I needed Butcher to speak them out loud. I wanted to hear that confirmation… feel it.
So I licked my lips, smoothed my hands down my pants, and took a deep breath in. “Is he gone? Is he dead?”
Butcher didn’t move, and I didn’t think he even breathed. His expression was stoic, the calm before the storm. And then he exhaled slowly, the scent of liquor on his breath moving along my face.
“He’s gone, Poppy. And he’ll never hurt you again. No one will ever hurt you again.” He took a step forward and lifted his hands, placing them on my shoulders. He slipped his palms down my arms, along my wrists, and took my hands into his. And then he just held them, looking into my eyes, this gentle side coming out from him despite the fact that he’d just murdered a man and was covered in his blood.
But I didn’t see any of that. I didn’t see violence or a criminal. I didn’t see a monster or the devil.
What I saw—who I stared at—was the man I loved.
* * *
Butcher
I held her, just let her body be pressed against mine, the feeling that she had given herself fully to me penetrating my brain.
I thought about what I’d done tonight, who I’d taken from this world, why I did it.
For her.
And as I shifted on the bed and looked at Poppy, saw the crescent shape of her lashes against her alabaster skin, I felt my heart beat for the first time in my life. I’d been existing this entire time, going through the motions, trying to just make it. But then she came into my life and everything changed, the world turning on its axis.
I felt like I was alive for the first fucking time.
I was in love. I loved her with a ferocity that could level a city, that could make a sane man insane. I loved her like the world was ending and there was nothing else that mattered but holding her close as I watched everything around me crumble.
