“They’re alright,” Knight tells me. “They’re so young and don’t really understand what they saw, so they’ll be okay.”
“Jonah is never going to let me get anywhere near them again.”
“Of course he will,” Knight tells me, pulling me into his strong arms and pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “He knows this wasn’t on you, and he knows just how far you went in order to keep them safe. If anything, Jonah is in the middle of handcrafting a fifty-foot statue of you to put up in his backyard. You risked your own life to protect his babies, and as a man, I am telling you, he is never going to forget that, nor will he take it lightly.”
I roll my eyes and pull a face. “You’re laying it on thicker than Ace trying to convince Izzy that he’s a muscular swooper.”
Knight laughs before taking my shoulders and spinning me around to face the hallway. “Go relax in the shower while I pour you a glass of wine.”
“You know alcohol and concussions are typically discouraged.”
“I’m aware, doll. But you and I both know that you’re going to end up drinking it anyway, so I might as well put myself to use while you chill in the shower.”
I grin, and as I make my way down the hall, I glance back over my shoulder. “Good point,” I tell him. “But don’t bother with just a glass. Bring me the whole bottle.”
After heading into the bathroom, I stand naked in front of the mirror, looking over the markings decorating my body. It’s not pretty. I’m covered in bruises from being whipped with a belt and cuts from where I was punched so hard my skin split. There are scratches from being dragged across the ground, and claw marks along my hips from fingernails. I have black eyes, swollen lips, and a puffy jaw.
My skin is blistered all over from the heat of the flames, and while I narrowly escaped receiving third-degree burns, my skin still isn’t out of the woods. I’ll be applying creams for weeks, maybe even months. Knight has a few burns and scratches of his own from the explosion, but being the stubborn alphaholethat he is, he didn’t bother bringing it to anyone’s attention. But I’m not surprised. At this point in our relationship, I’ve come to expect it.
Not able to look at myself any longer, I lean into the shower before turning on the water and giving it a few moments to warm up. Before I can step into the spray, Knight strides into the bathroom with a bottle of wine in his hand and two glasses dangling from his other hand. We both know he only brought them along so that we can at least pretend to be civilized shower drinkers.
As the water warms up and the bathroom floods with steam, I step under the water and hiss as it hits my skin. “Shit, that stings,” I say, immediately dancing back and adjusting the temperature. I guess I’m stuck with cool showers for the foreseeable future.
Getting the water to a temperature my skin can tolerate, I move in under the stream and let it cascade over my body, washing away the horrors of this past weekend. Then, as I tilt my head back to rinse my hair, Knight steps up to the entrance of the shower with a full glass of wine in his hand. He leans against the wall, watching me through a broken stare.
“I’m okay,” I promise him, my heart breaking for him. He’s always so strong for me, always holding me together through all of my twisted bullshit, that I can’t even begin to imagine how he must be feeling on the inside.
“You killed a man,” he says, not that it’s common knowledge. As far as the police are concerned, Elias was killed during the explosion. “No matter how vile that person might have been, what you had to do to survive leaves scars.”
I nod, already well aware of the scars it has left within me, though I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface of how much trauma this is going to bring me. “I don’t think it’s really hit me yet,” I tell him honestly, taking the glass of wine from his handsand taking a small sip before placing it down on the little shelf. “I just feel . . . numb. When I think about what I did, I can’t help but think about everything he did and what more he was going to do to me, and . . . I think I did the right thing. I know I lost control. Maybe it was desperation. But I don’t regret it. He had to die.”
Knight nods before shrugging out of his shirt and stepping right into the shower, pants and all. His arm immediately scoops around my waist, gently pressing me up against the cool shower tiles. Usually I’d screech at being up against the chilly wall, but while my skin burns, I can’t help but sink into the cold tiles.
“Fuck,” he breathes, his gaze sweeping across my face as if still unable to believe I’m standing right in front of him. “I was a mess. I thought . . . I thought I lost you.”
I shake my head, looking up into those eyes that have consumed every piece of my heart and soul. “That’s never going to happen,” I vow. “Not when I know you’re here. There’s nothing anybody could do to me that would stop me from ever coming home to you. I belong right here. You are my home now.”
Knight closes his eyes, his forehead dropping against mine as his fingers splay over my waist, needing to hold me tighter, but he’s clearly terrified of hurting my burned skin. “Doll,” he whispers.
“Forever yours.”
He groans, and as his fingers dance across my skin, lifting to my jaw, an overwhelming warmth spreads through my chest. His thumb brushes across my bottom lip, and the way he stares so deeply into my eyes makes my heart explode into a million tiny pieces, every last one of them etched with his initials.
“Goddamn, my world would burn without you.”
My heart races as I suck in a breath, and before I can tell him just how much I love him, his lips come down on mine, kissing me deeply. I melt into his hold, and before I know it, I’m in hisarms, my legs wrapped around his waist as he carries me out of the shower, both of us dripping wet.
Hunger explodes between us, and suddenly I don’t care about my burned skin or the way my body aches. All that matters is this incredible man wrapped around me.
“Knight,” I murmur against his warm lips.
“I’ve got you, doll.”
We reach the bed, soaking wet from the shower, and he wastes no time laying me against his pillow, my hair instantly drenching the sheets as he comes down over me. He drops his lips to the base of my neck, being so damn careful while also giving me exactly what I need.
His tongue rolls over my sensitive skin, and I arch up off the mattress, my chest pressed against his as I tip my head back.
Knight works his way down my body, his lips trailing kisses across my skin, and with every kiss, something inside me heals. He takes his time, not missing even an inch of skin as he works his way over my breasts and down past my hips.
