“Pretty girl,” I choke out. Fuck. I hate seeing her like this.
“Come here, man,” Ryder says, sliding off the bed. I take his place and pull her to my chest; she clutches me close, tears leaking down my chest.
Holden kisses the top of her head, closing his eyes. When he opens them, there’s so much pain in them that it takes my breath away.
None of us know how to deal with what happened. We lost her, and we thought she was gone for good. Now that we know what it’s like to be without her, we’ll stop at nothing to make sure we never are again.
After one last kiss to the top of her head, Holden slides off the bed, following Ryder from the room. They usually stay when I come in, and I’ll lay wherever there’s room just to hear her soft breathing. So, they must feel how much I need to be alone with her.
I recline us back on the bed with her still clutched to my chest. She runs her finger down the scar between my pecs, just like she does every time she sees it.
Ryder accidentally saw the scars on her, including that piece of shit carving his name into her skin. She was in the shower and started screaming; he ran up without hesitation. He found her in the corner of the bathtub full-blown panic attack, and scooped her out; that’s when he saw them.
We lay there wrapped in each other’s arms, and I feel my eyelids droop, signaling sleep will come again.
“He didn’t rape me. He said I had to work for it. But he touched me,” Les whispers brokenly, and my eyes snap back open. I fuckingknewit. I grit my teeth to keep from exploding. I pull her closer instead, hoping she’s finally ready to talk. “Every night,” she sobs, “telling me I was his. The whole time Zane was on the other side of the curtain.”
Holy shit. I didn’t expect her to say that. Zane had to listen to everything?
“I couldn’t fight,” she says. “I couldn’t do anything. I just shut down. I stopped talking, even to Zane. I hid in a place in my head where I saw my guy’s faces, except yours. I never saw yours,” shefinishes, starting to cry again. I hate feeling so useless when it comes to her. Les has always been tough, a take-no-shit kind of person, but something like this is something even Les will have to take time to get over. We’ll also be here every step of the way, making sure she’s never alone in this.
“You did fight,” I tell her, rubbing her back. “You got out.”
“He called me pretty girl,” she says. “I knew then I would get away or die trying.”
I know what happened after that from what the guys saw in the footage. They said she kicked his ass with her arms tied to the bed. Then Zane snapped that guard’s neck, and the rest is history.
“You’re no one’s pretty girl but mine,” I growl before I can stop myself.
“And I always will be,” she says. She bends down and places a tender kiss on my scar before laying one on my lips. I try to keep it PG, but she adds more pressure; I open up for her immediately. It has been too long since I tasted her lips, and I’m not passing it up. She slides her body on top of mine, and I freeze.
“Les,” I say hoarsely. I don’t want her to think this is all I want. I just wanted to see her, hold her.
“Make it go away,” she whispers against my lips. “Make me forget.”
“Les, I…”
“Please.”
Fuck.Les hasn’t been intimate with us since we got her back, and we understood. Completely. We were just happy she still allowed us to touch her at all.
I grab her face in my hands and search her eyes. They are wide open and focused on me, with not an ounce of fear. “Anything happens you don’t want, or you get scared. Tell me.”
“I will.”
I pull her face back to mine and slant my mouth over hers. She sighs at the contact, opening her mouth for me to slide my tongue against hers.
Kissing her feels like coming home.
She sinks further into the kiss, letting me know she’s okay. I rollus, so we’re on our sides, and I slide my fingers into her silky black hair, pulling her closer.
I kiss her until her hips start shifting to rub against my hard cock. Sliding my hand to the hem of her shirt, ready to pull it off, she grabs my wrist. I pull my lips away to look into her eyes. “Leave it on,” she says softly, and I try not to let my emotions show on my face. She’s worn baggy clothes since she got home and never wears anything that will allow a peek of those scars to show. Ryder said she’s covered in them, and some are still healing. Iwillgut this motherfucker.
I swallow the anger to savor this moment with her. “Okay, Pretty girl,” I reply, kissing her lips again. I don’t care how slow she wants to go; she’s finally in my arms again.
Our hands are sliding all over each other, re-memorizing each other’s bodies. I can’t stop the groan when her hand slides over my dick through my boxers.
“I missed that sound,” she says, jerking her lips from mine, massaging harder.
