Page 91 of Her Devoted HERO

“I’m not going to tell you everything. I’m just not, Austin.”

“You have to.”

She smiled through the wet and put her forehead against his. “Honey, it’s like Dex said, there are going to be enough scars on your soul eventually. What I will tell you, is that it was the thought of you that got me through that hell. I didn’t give up because of you.”

He put his big hands on her shoulders. “I thank God Dex was there to save you that day. I’m glad you’re going to have him when I leave one day, but you can’t shut me out.”

Her eyes got wide. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Aren’t you?”

Shit. Did she raise the Dali Lama?

“You’re something else,” she whispered.

“Since you can’t sleep, and you won’t talk, want me to make some popcorn?”

“Bullshit, I want chocolate pudding, with condensed milk poured on top,” Kenna said.

“Score!” Austin said as he bounded off the couch.

***

Dex watched Kenna sleep. She was restless, and he hated that. He pulled her closer and feathered a kiss against her temple.

“Shhh, Baby, I’ve got you. You’re safe.” Somewhere deep in her subconscious, she must have heard him because she settled. He brushed his fingers over her neck. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget that frantic minute it took to get that fucking collar off her. Then seeing the bruises and blisters had made him want to kill Gale all over again, only more slowly, more painfully.

Kenna absolutely amazed him. That day, she could barely move, and her only thought was to help Buddy. Hunter was still talking about it, and Hunter hardly talked.

Seven days out of the hospital and Kenna was taking things on full tilt. She informed him she was seeing a psychologist twice a week to ‘get that fucking whackjob out of my head.’ It helped that Penny was a strong shoulder for her daughter to lean on, but Dex knew even without her, Kenna would have been able to cope. That was who she was.

She said something in her sleep.

“What, Baby?”

“Dex?”

“I’m here.”

“Good. Go to sleep, Honey.” She tugged him closer, and he smiled. He watched as her eyes drifted shut and she fell back asleep.

She even worried about him. There was the serious conversation she tried to have where she wanted to talk about how shooting Lyle might have adversely affected him. It was the first time he’d really laughed since she’d gone missing that day.

“Poppy,” he remembered saying. “Killing Lyle Gale wasn’t even a blip on my radar. All that mattered was getting to you, and he was in the way.”

“But he―”

Dex interrupted. “After I really got a chance to see the house of horrors, and realize that there were two bodies in there, my level of satisfaction quadrupled. Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t have wanted to pull that trigger?”

Her face had hardened.

“I would have aimed for his dick and let him bleed out.”

He loved his vicious woman, and he told her so.

She cried. “I hate crying,” she said into his shirt.

“I love that you’re here to cry. Let it out, Baby.”