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You know what broke you the most.
I strangled my coffee cup.
Don’t, Ri.
Don’t—
The memory of her touch.
The heat of her closeness.
The exquisite sensation of hugging her—
Too late.
My cock reacted. My heart thundered. The urge to hug her again poured hotly down my weary, achy arms.
Adrenaline and anxiety, greed and gratitude all soaked my system, and my knees trembled beneath the table.
That hug.
That damn fucking hug.
My first.
My only.
And goddammit, I hadn’t been aware how much I’d been starving.
Past starving.
Fucking emaciated for something I didn’t even know I needed.
The strength it took not to wrap her in another hug this morning when she woke in bruise-shot agony. The sheer willpower I’d had to enlist not to scoop her into my arms as she limped out of the bathroom, her chest painted in a kaleidoscope of earthy, brutal pigments. The mark of my teeth on her throat almost pushed me over the edge.
Jesus Christ.
“I have to say, I’m severely disappointed in you, gentlemen.” Victor’s pompous speech cut through my thoughts, giving me a reprieve.
A few Masters grumbled over their fruit pastries.
“You were told the winner could do whatever he wanted. The key word in that sentence, my friends, was winner. Yet I hear from lovely Dr Belford that she currently has seven jewels all in various states of disrepair thanks to some of you anointing yourself as the winner without my consent.”
Another grumble of dissent.
Victor stopped marching and glowered at all of us. “Seven jewels are out of service for the foreseeable future. Three of those seven are missing pieces. And another might not make it.”
Ily stiffened by my feet, no doubt wondering if Peter was the one who might not make it.
He’d looked pretty messed up.
I didn’t know how much a human body could endure before breaking down, but…he’d been close. Carrying him up the hill, I swore he’d stopped breathing a few times. I’d clutched him close, hiding his lack of living from the three jewels climbing exhausted behind me. I’d deliberated digging him a grave or running as fast as I could for someone to resuscitate him.
But each time I thought he’d died, he sucked in another shallow breath and survived.
Ily moaned quietly as she shifted yet again on the hard oak floor.
I hated her kneeling on bruised legs.
