Reaper's Salvation: A Last Riders Trilogy Jamie Begley (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📖

“Are you already breaking your promise to me?”

“Huh? What promise? I promised not to jump off the waterfall—”

“Is it too much for me to ask that anything concerning you getting hurt falls under the one and only rule I’m asking for you to follow—if I’m willing to give you the same say-so in regard to me?”

Her disgruntled expression cleared. “You mean it?”

“Yes. I swear, I won’t do anything that will endanger my welfare,” he promised, then made an important clarification. “Unless I need to protect you.”

“Then I promise the same … with the same condition.”

Reaper frowned. “No.”

“Then no right back at you.”

Reaper gritted his teeth. “If you become so afraid of something happening to me and you feel the need to step in, then you have to go to Viper first.”

“That doesn’t seem fair to me.”

“I’m a Last Rider; each of the brothers’ wives have a replacement brother to turn to. I want Viper to be yours … unless you want one of the other brothers?”

“That wouldn’t bother you if I picked someone other than Viper? What if I wanted Shade or Rider?”

His expression was deadpan. “No.”

“I don’t see Killyama going along with this.”

“She did.” However, Reaper neglected to tell Ginny about the chaos that erupted within the club when Killyama found out about the brothers having replacements.

Ginny glared at him distrustfully, as if she didn’t believe him. “Who did Killyama pick?”

“Rider.”

“It seems to me that’s another rule, which would make it two.”

“No. Just one rule. You won’t even need to go to Viper if you just follow the rule of not getting into any situations where you can be hurt.”

“Okay. Then if I get a replacement for you, you get one for me. Killyama can be mine.”

“Fuck no!”

“I thought you liked Killyama. You’ve given her roses.”

“I meant I’m never going to need a replacement. Nothing is going to happen to you. I won’t let it,” he said confidently.

“There’s something extremely sexy about you right now.”

“It’s all the tattoos,” he teased.

Her eyes flickered over the tattoos scattered over his body and skull. “I can’t disagree with that. Are any of them for Taylor?”

A red alert went off in his brain, but he gave her the truth anyway. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because good cover-ups are a bitch to find.”

“Are any of your tattoos for other women you’ve been with?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He rolled his eyes at her satisfaction. “Why?”

“If any woman is going to leave a mark on you, it’s gonna be me. You make me want to get a tattoo.” Ginny ran a hand lovingly over his shoulder.

“No.”

Ginny raised her eyebrows in confusion. “Why not?”

“Getting a tattoo hurts.” Reaper gave her the simplest answer, withholding the real truth.

“I can take a lot of pain.” She stopped moving her hand to cup the ball of his shoulder. “Getting a tattoo would be child’s play,” she scoffed.

“Okay …,” he scoffed back. “In regard to what?”

“Loving you.”

Reaper broke away from her to swim toward the bank to get out and shutting down any opportunity to illuminate her about his own feelings.

“Gavin … come here,” she called out in the same voice he had used with her. “Now.”

He turned back to face her.

“Come. Here.”

She was giving him her ultimatum. If he expected her to obey him when it was important to him, then he had to give as much as he took.

“Fuck,” he swore under his breath, swimming back to her.

“Wild man, I didn’t say that to hurt you or to get you say something you don’t want to. I said it to tell you that I don’t need you to take the wheel when I could be hurt.” Ginny lifted her hand out the water to show the palm of her hand. “Fire can be the most destructive force on Earth. It can burn down homes, forests, and civilizations. Nevertheless, we use fire to heat homes, create firebreaks, and build civilizations.”

Ginny bore her eyes into his. “You joined the Navy to be a warrior, Gavin. Your service to your country forged a strength in you that was hammered down, then tempered during your kidnapping, over and over again. All this time, you think it destroyed the man you were. It didn’t. You’re still the same man, except stronger. A steel so powerful that it can no longer be wielded in someone else’s hand. A steel so indestructible that it can be used as a sword or a shield against your enemies, or to protect those you love.” Ginny raised her hand higher to tap a finger on his brow. “You still believe you returned to The Last Riders as a prodigal son.” She dropped her hand to his heart to tap on his chest. “You didn’t. You came home a gladiator.”

She let her hand fall back to the water. “I can tell you don’t believe me, and that’s fine. Just know one freakin’ thing in that hard head of yours. You … will … never … ever … fight … alone again, and you can take that to the freaking bank.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“I knew there was a reason I married you.”

“We’re not,” Ginny fervently denied.

“Are, too.”

“Not.”

“Are.”

Ginny wiggled the fingers of her left hand in his face. “You see a ring here? You don’t. There’s nothing here. Zip, zilch, nada.”

“I have something more important—a legal paper.”

“Until Pastor Dean says the words, I now pronounce you man and wife, you may be married in what corner of the universe you live in, but in mine, I’m still single and fancy-free.”

“You live in the same universe as I do, and we’re married.”

“I never believed there could be a man more stubborn than Greer Porter, but I was wrong. You beat Greer.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“You would,” she scoffed.

“People in town just misunderstand him.”

“Since when did you two become BFFs?”

“We’re not BFFs; we’re kindred spirits.” Reaper nearly swallowed his own tongue on that whopper.

Ginny went under the water. He didn’t get worried until she didn’t pop right back up. A few seconds later, he turned in the