Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I may have a little hobby I’ve kept all to myself.
Later that night, he texts.
Cavin
I want to take you to dinner
I freak out and quickly text him back.
No. I’m busy.
It’s a lie though.
He tries again the next day, and I feel guilty as fuck. Maybe it is a good idea. Maybe we can at least find a way to pretend that we like each other for something like this.
Cavin
I’m not asking, Erin
I can still see him standing in the ring, sweaty and scarred—the first time I’ve seen my future husband bare-chested after a fight. I knew when he was in school, he fought, but I never witnessed it. I didn’t like violence.
But now—now, it affects me in a way I never anticipated.
He was magnificent. Terrifying. Beautiful in the most dangerous way possible.
The scars mapped across his torso told stories I’d never heard—white lines across his ribs, a puckered mark near his collarbone that looked like a stab wound, the evidence of broken bones healed wrong. His body was a history of violence, and under the lights, slick with sweat and spattered with blood, he looked like some ancient warrior marked with tribal ink.
But it wasn’t just his appearance. It was the way he… moved.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Every punch was calculated, precise. He read his opponent three moves ahead, slipping strikes that should have connected, countering with devastating accuracy. There was an intelligence to his violence, a genius to the brutality that made it almost an art form.
He didn’t just overpower his opponent. He dismantled him. Systematically. Beautifully. Ruthlessly.
And I couldn’t look away.
My heart pounded in my chest, my breath coming short. When his fist connected, that sickening thud of knuckles on flesh should have made me flinch. Should have made me turn away.
Instead, I leaned forward.
Heat flooded through me, pooling low in my belly. My breasts felt heavier, my pulse racing. My skin felt too tight. Every brutal hit, every display of raw power, sent electricity skittering down my spine. I was afraid of him in that moment—truly afraid of what he was capable of—and somehow, that fear tangled with desire until I couldn’t separate them.
This was who Cavin really was beneath the expensive suits and measured words. This violence, this power, this absolute dominance wasn’t a side of him. It was his foundation.
And god help me, I wanted it. I wanted him. But here’s what truly undid me: I realized, watching him in that ring, that when he’s with me, he cages all of that.
Every touch has been controlled. Every kiss measured. Even when he’s angry with me, even when I went into the club and he was furious, he held himself back. That massive, devastating force that could break a man in half, and nearly did, treats me… differently.
Maybe Cavin isn’t the boy I knew in school.
He fights like a demon but doesn’t unleash himself on me.
Or hasn’t yet.
The restraint that must take… the control.
Standing there in the crowd, watching him raise his bloodied fists in victory, I felt something shift inside me. Fear, yes. Awe, absolutely. Arousal that made my knees weak.
But also… pride.
He’s mine.
This dangerous, violent man has chosen to be gentle with me. And that choice, that constant caging of his nature, is somehow more intimate than anything else between us.
When his eyes found mine across the crowd, dark and predatory and hungry, I felt it like a physical touch.
Maybe he won’t always cage it with me. Not forever.
And the most terrifying part?
I want him to let it loose. Excitement and arousal twist together. I’ve replayed the fight and his hand around my neck, replayed those moments a thousand times since, trying to understand why it didn’t terrify me but did the opposite.
And I want to feel it again.
But this time, I want to see how it ends.
So finally, I say yes.
Okay, fine. Alright I’ll go out to dinner with you.
When?
Cavin
Tonight. I’ll pick you up at six o’clock. Wear something pretty.
My heart flutters in my chest.
I wish Bridget wasn’t back in the hospital for treatments because I want someone to complain to and then squeal with. I want someone who will help me pick out the clothes I should wear. I want to talk about what I’m going to do tonight.
I may be marrying a man I hate, but at least he’s a man and not a boy. He’s picking me up. He told me what time. He told me what to wear.
I like black and white. I like expectations and dependability. So if anything, Cavin is competent. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?
I don’t tell my mother—I have at least an ounce of self-preservation left. But I do go to my da.
“Listen,” I tell my father over breakfast. “Would you agree that I’m making a sacrifice for this family?”
“Of course,” he says, pushing his cup of tea away. “What’s this about?”