Two weeks later, my setup had gotten a little out of hand. I had cameras in all the public areas of the clubhouse, plus several outside and down the road to the gate. Lynn had a necklace to go with her bracelet—fuck knows how, but she knew they both contained trackers—and I checked the feeds every minute I had to be away from her. But I was fine.
She woke up two times a night gasping or snarling, fighting rapists who were long dead, and I didn’t know how to make it better, but I wasfine.
“Fuck’s sake!” I yelled and grabbed the nearest item—a computer mouse—and hurled it at the wall. Of course, I already shattered my wireless mouse during the nightmarish search for Lynn, so this one was wired, and it took immediate revenge by rebounding and slamming into my knee. “Mother-fucking-fucker!”
“Nice,” Lynn drawled, startling the hell out of me.
I physically jumped in my seat, whipping my head around to watch her close the door behind her, walking carefully to the seat beside me. Her tentative motions were so fucking similar to the way she walked when we first met, when I didn’t think she’d ever see the other side. Then she did, and the universe had to ruin fucking everything. She deserved so much better, and it made mefurious.I wanted to rip something apart, wanted to shatter everything in the room, wanted—
“Breathe,” she whispered, reaching over to lay her hand over my closed fist.
I dragged air through gritted teeth, but it didn’t make a dent in my rage until Lynn sighed and pulled my chair back from the desk, making enough room for her to climb on my lap. The moment her weight rested on me, her head tucked under my chin, her hand on my frantic heart, I wanted to cry.
“I don’t want to admit this,” I said in a thick voice, “but I might need therapy again. With the—that fucking scent, and the rescues we found being whored out like I was, and then—Lynn, losing you fucked me up. I don’t know what to do.”
There it was. I didn’t know what to do, and I fuckingloathedit. But therapy got my head sorted out last time, and the two times the memories had gotten the better of me since. It worked, I just hated it.
“I’ll come with you,” she offered, her voice so quiet but there. So fucking strong just for existing.
“Are you sure? The things I need to talk about—”
“Are no worse than mine.”
My immediate reaction was to refuse—there were details she didn’t ever need to know—but I reeled it back, locked the refusal between my teeth. Lynn was offering to go totherapy,and god knows how badly she needed professional help right now. Icould handle someone else knowing the secrets I’d kept if it wasLynnhearing it.
“Couple’s therapy,” I said, playing with a lock of her hair. “Who’d have thought we’d be the most emotionally mature couple out of everyone in the club?”
“Seems unrealistic,” she murmured.
“And yet.” I soaked in the feeling of her pressed against me, breathing, speaking. “Have you eaten?”
“Mm. ChaCha brought us pancakes.”
“Sweetie’s gonna be raging.” I smirked, stretching my arm out to wake up my computer, bringing the screens to life. “He keeps bitching about a pan of cheese shit that went missing.”
“Weird.”
I tugged a lock of her hair. “Thief.”
“What are you gonna do, snitch on us?” She sounded smug, and my eyes fell shut at the sound. “We all have knives now, so tread carefully.”
“What do you mean youallhave knives now?” I narrowed my eyes. “Is that why my collection’s getting fucking light these days?”
Her laugh was low and wicked and thoroughly unrepentant. “You can get some more.”
Eh, fair point. I’d be sure to get a few extra for my woman, too. “Asshole,” I said with far too much love to be an insult.
When she lifted her head, she was smirking. The sight knocked me sideways. The shadows were there in her eyes, and the nightmares would return, but my hope was enough to choke me.
“Mario Kart?” she asked, seeing what I’d brought up on the screen. Her eyes were a little glassy when they met mine.
“Figured I’d let you win a few races,” I said through a tight throat.
She scoffed. “Fuck that. Do your worst, Peach.”
I tightened my arms when she tried to leave my lap. “Nope. You’re staying right here.” I could race her just as easily with her sitting on me.
She was quiet as I loaded the game and handed her a controller. Then she said, “I knew you’d come.”
