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So, I wrapped my arms around her and pushed to my feet, taking her with me. Her naked flesh burned into mine as I brought her flush to my chest.
She curled her arms around my neck.
Her legs were dangling, and she gave me a soft, sultry giggle that reverberated through the middle of me as I hugged her close. “Don’t think I remember a time in my life when I’ve felt this good, either,” I rumbled at her temple.
She sighed and hung on.
“I’m going to put you on your feet and you’re going to get dressed, then I’m going to take you back to your room and pretend like it doesn’t kill me thinking about doing it, but I don’t think you’re ready for what I have in store for you yet.”
Maybe it was me who needed a fucking minute to get my head on straight. To remember what this had to be. To stop the things that Otto had suggested earlier tonight from invading. Things about making this legit and finding joy for ourselves.
But even if I went clean, I could never undo what I’d already done.
So, I reluctantly placed Charleigh on her feet. Feet that wobbled a bit, her knees weak.
No doubt, she needed a minute, too.
I leaned down to snatch my jeans and underwear from the floor, watching her the whole time as I shoved my feet into them. She peeked over at me as she bent to gather her clothes from the floor.
She’d shifted so she could grab them, and it gave me a bare glimpse of her back.
Her back that was scarred from the middle to the base. Scarred with a thousand gnarled lashes that I was pretty sure had been stacked on top of each other over a period of years.
There’d been no question that she had been abused, but I’d had no fuckin’ clue the severity of it, and I was wholly unprepared for the rage that went sailing through my being.
Unprepared for the riot of violence that shot through me like the spray of a thousand bullets.
Impaling.
Ripping and shredding.
Destroying.
Couldn’t fuckin’ see through the need to bring blood. I moved behind her, my hands in fists as the words scraped from my mouth. “Who the fuck did this to you?”
Because whoever they were? They were going to die.
THIRTY-SEVEN
CHARLEIGH
I frozeat the brutal force of his words.
A shiver rolled through me as I felt the energy shift in the room. The bliss we’d been floating on evaporated, and in its place was a hostility so severe it clogged the air in toxic venom.
I should have known this would be coming. Should have known he wouldn’t ignore it the way I needed him to.
I shook my head to clear the stupor, my brain foggy from the perfection of his touch, and I hurried to grab my clothes, then turned to face him as if I could hide my back. I doubted it did anything but emphasize it with the way I had to bend over while I fumbled to get on my underwear, then my sweats.
“Who?” he demanded, still towering.
I readjusted the cups of my bra and tugged my tank back over my head, voice haggard. “It’s nothing.”
What bullshit.
He knew it.
Of course, he knew it. He’d known it all along.
