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“Angel,” I said, cupping her jaw in an attempt to keep her eyes on my face, “I’m trying really hard to prove to you that I’m not like them, which is why I need you to—”
Clover’s gaze dropped to my waist, and her body froze as she took in what had to be the last thing she needed to see. I didn’t look down, but I could feel the spray of the shower on the entire exposed head of my cock, where it rose above the top of my unbuttoned trousers.
I held my breath and waited for the flashback, the tears, the terror, but instead, Clover simply swallowed, took a deliberate breath, and tore her gaze away from my massive erection, glancing at my soaked bandage wrapped around my waist instead. Gentle fingers untied the knot, using the strip of fabric to wash the dried blood away from my bullet wound. I stared at her lowered eyelids as she worked, trying to read her mind. Then, she leaned forward, slowly, and pressed her lips to a spot just above the scab.
Her touch was featherlight, but it felt like a branding iron—excruciating, scarring, burning itself through the deepest layers of me. I would never forget that feeling. Never escape it. It would haunt me for the rest of my life. When the Bratva finally got me back, I prayed that they’d torture me enough to give me even a momentary reprieve from the agony of knowing that this feeling existed, that this woman existed, and I couldn’t have her.
I gritted my teeth and breathed through the pain as Clover’s gaze traveled up to my opposite arm. Delicately, she untied the bloody strip of blue-and-white fabric and winced at the gash underneath. The water cascading over the wound should have hurt like a bitch, but I couldn’t feel a thing other than her lips on my bicep and her name being seared into my heart.
When her fingertips moved up to my jaw, turning my face so that she could lift up onto her toes and check the gash on my head, I was thankful to have an excuse to look away. Because the moment I felt her hands in my hair, the grief became unbearable. Tears burned behind my tightly closed lids as Clover washed the blood out of my hair. My chest throbbed. My throat closed, and when she sank back down onto her flat feet and pressed her tits to my chest and her lips to the side of my neck, I grabbed her biceps and jerked her away with far more force than I’d intended.
Clover’s startled eyes flew to mine as I struggled to control my emotions. I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat, so I gritted my teeth and shook my head, begging her with my eyes not to push me any further. It was gut-wrenching enough that I had to leave her. I couldn’t fuck her and leave her. I wouldn’t.
Reaching past her, I opened the shower door and waited for her to go. I watched Clo’s eyebrows pull together in confusion as she searched my face for an explanation, but I didn’t have one to give. The truth was too painful. And if I told her, she’d try to make me stay.
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
And maybe that would be worse.
Pushing past her, I stormed out of the shower and into the bedroom, dripping all over the wooden floor as I tore off my soaking wet trousers.
“Damien!”
Tossing them through the open door and into the sink, I dug through the clothes Kate had left out, looking for a pair of boxers.
“Damien, wait!”
The water shut off.
No underwear. Just black trousers and a white shirt.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Just tell me what I did, and I won’t do it again. Please!”
The moment I heard that word, the invisible thread of control I’d been hanging on to snapped like a fucking trip wire.
Clover’s face paled as I stalked toward her and grabbed her jaw, walking her back into the bathroom until her arse hit the sink behind her.
“Don’t ever say that to me again. You have nothin’ to be sorry for, Clo. Nothin’!”
Her eyes instantly widened and filled with tears.
“Fuck!” I shoved away from her and thrust my hands into my hair.
Clo reached for me, but I took another step back.
“Damien, talk to me.” Her voice broke, along with my heart, as I turned and grabbed the shirt off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
I started unbuttoning it.
“You can’t leave.”
My hands were shaking.
“Damien, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s happening. Please!”
I had only gotten three buttons unfastened before I threw the shirt back on the bed and turned toward her with a fury she didn’t deserve.
