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Clover nodded and glanced at my mouth. It was just a second, but I could see the conflict on her face. I felt it too. We’d only kissed twice, and both times had ended with her in the fetal position. So, this time, I wasn’t going to kiss her at all.
At least not on the mouth.
“I want to start over,” I said, brushing a few wet strands of hair away from her face. “When I found you at the encampment, when I saw you splayed out on that counter, ya know what I wanted to do to you?”
Clover lowered her gaze as shame stained her cheeks pink.
Dropping my forehead to hers, I had to concentrate on keeping my hands from balling into fists as I smoothed them down the length of her arms. “I wanted to kiss every bruise, every scratch and cut on your beautiful body”—I pressed my lips to her cheekbone again—“while you told me how you got each and every one.” I kissed her nose as clean, warm water cascaded down my face. After being covered in dried blood, salt water, and whiskey for a week, the sensation of having it all washed away felt amazing. It felt like a fresh start, which was exactly what I wanted with Clover.
“And then I wanted to kill every man in that room with my bare fucking hands.”
Clover glanced back up at me, full lips parting in surprise.
Taking her hand in mine, I brought it to my mouth and kissed the thin red line encircling her wrist. There were finger-shaped bruises just below it that I hadn’t noticed before. My blood fucking boiled, but I forced myself to breathe through it until I was able to speak again.
“Angel, I need you to tell me what happened. Please. Let me make it better.”
And she did.
Clover started at the beginning as I helped her to her feet, trying to ignore both my painfully hard cock and her achingly perfect tits as I kissed every bruise and cut on both arms before moving down the center of her chest. I felt her heart pound beneath my lips as she told me what had happened in the field. Felt her shudder as my hands traced the curves of her battered ribs, followed by my mouth as I kissed every black-and-blue reminder of what they’d done.
I wanted to heal everything that hurt. Worship every place they’d wounded. It wasn’t sexual. It was … sacrificial—my heart in exchange for her happiness.
I worked my way down her stomach to her pelvis as she described what those men had done to her at the encampment. How they’d stripped her, restrained her, humiliated and violated her.
It took all the willpower I had not to grip her hips in anger, not to bury my face in her pussy and make her forget every motherfucker who’d dared to touch her before me. But I was trying to prove that I was different from them, both to her and to myself. So, I clenched my jaw until my teeth nearly cracked, and I kept fucking going.
Her long, toned legs—strong from years spent scaling the cliffs of Howth—trembled under my fingertips as I showered every scrape and gash on them with attention. I knew that she’d fallen off the path, running from a drone, and I knew her feet were fucked from going a week without shoes—a fact that I felt personally responsible for—so I turned her around to face the wall and carefully lifted each foot. I kissed the raw red pads of all ten toes, her punctured heels, her scabbed ankles. But when I dragged my tongue along the curve of her arch, her moan of pleasure was so fucking sexy that I had to unbutton the top of my trousers to make room for my swollen cock.
I couldn’t even call it torture. It was a privilege to be allowed to touch her again. I’d thought I needed to fuck her, but I didn’t. I’d needed to feel her. To hold her. To give her pleasure instead of pain.
As I worked my way up the backs of her thighs, I remembered exactly what it had felt like to be buried between them—like coming home, like a warm, soft, welcoming heaven after a lifetime spent burning in hell. I remembered what Clover’s firm, round arse had felt like in my hands as she pushed back against me, begging me to make her feel good, to save her from a hell of her own.
My mouth watered as I scented her need, as I imagined dragging my tongue along the seam of her pussy, tasting what I’d felt earlier. My palms slid over the handprint-shaped bruises on her arse, followed by my lips as I lavished her with open-mouthed kisses that were meant for somewhere else.
Fuck.
Making my way up her back, I gathered her hair in one hand and slid it over her shoulder, exposing the last of the places I needed to touch. By the time I was standing again, my lips were on the top of her head, my hands had just finished working the knots out of her neck, and my hips were far enough away to avoid accidentally grazing her with my cock.
“That’s what I wanted to do,” I finally said, running my palms down her arms and pressing a kiss to her freckled shoulder.
“Thank you,” Clover whispered, turning her face toward mine.
I nodded, my lips still on her shoulder and a lump in my fucking throat.
“Damien …” Clo’s voice dripped with remorse as she tried to turn around, but I gripped her arms and steered her toward the shower door instead.
“Go on now. Off to bed.”
Clover stood at the door, but didn’t open it. She tried to turn around again, but I held her in place.
“Clo, please. Go.”
“I don’t want to,” she huffed, lifting her arms in an attempt to shrug me off.
And I let her do it. I couldn’t bear to restrain her after everything she’d just told me, but my heart sank the moment I let go. I knew the instant she turned around and saw another hard cock pointed in her direction, that would be it. She’d be triggered, and we’d be right back where we’d started.
Clover spun around before I had a chance to warn her, and the sight of her, dripping wet and flushed with need, stole the breath from my lungs. Fuck, she was perfect.
