I reach my hand out, placing my palm against her cheek.“I’m here, precious.”
“Stay with me,” she mumbles.She drags her fingers over my stomach.“Kiss me.”
Her unexpected demand crashes into me, nearing knocking the wind out of me.Every cell in my body is yanking me toward her.I press my heels into the floor, keeping myself still.I can’t kiss her now.I won't.It’s not that she might not remember the kiss that bothers me.I don't give a fuck about that.What bothers me is that she might not remember that she asked for it.I need her to recognize that she wants this.I need her to accept it.
“Shh,” I quiet her with a soft sound, “lay down.I'm not leaving you.”
She lays back on the bed, her hair fanning out around her face like soft waves of warm earth.Those pale, green eyes, still glazed from the alcohol, remain fixed on me.They drift slowly, perusing my chest and abdomen.My chest involuntarily puffs under her heated gaze.
I unbuckle my belt, pulling it through my belt loops until it's free.The moment my belt is in my hands, something changes in her.She suddenly jumps up, her eyes exploding open.Her uncoordinated legs scramble underneath her, leaving her tumbling off the bed.She crab walks backward until her back bumps the wall, where she tucks her knees into her chest.
Confused by her reaction, I rush toward her until my shins bump hers.A frightened whimper rattles in her throat as her wide eyes flit from my face to the belt in my hands.Tears stream down her cheeks, painting her face with mascara.
I've seen Ava afraid.I've watched her cower in fear before me, her lips quivering as she waits to see what my sick obsession will make me do to her.But this is different.There's no arousal hiding in the depths of her fear.There's no spark inside her glossy eyes, no fight.She's a cornered animal, frozen in fright.
“Okay, baby,” I say softly.“It's okay.”
My chest clenches as I watch those terrified eyes hone in on my belt.Keeping my movements slow, I put the belt down on the floor behind me and kick it away.I hold my hands up, showing her that I'm not a threat as I kneel in front of her.
Watching my little bird shy away from me, my mind flashes back to the file Shawn made on her after I first saw her in that coffee shop.The medical records.The visits to the emergency room.The injuries that went uninvestigated.I recall the way she flinched when I first touched her face.What happened to her?
I reach my hand out, running my knuckles along her cheek.Her shoulders shake with soft sobs.
“I-I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I'm so broken.”
I sit down and pull her into my lap, pressing her head into my chest and running my hand through her hair.
“Why are you afraid of my belt, precious?”
The only sound that escapes her lips is her wheezing breaths and stifled sobs.
“Who hurt you, Ava?”
Her voice is muffled against my chest as she curls her body into me, making herself small.“My father,” she says.
I freeze at her admission, at the familiarity.“Tell me what happened.”
Through her sobs, she recounts an all too familiar story, one I know well from my own past.She tells me about her alcoholic father, the man who beat her and her mother.She tells me about the death of her mother, the only shining light in the darkness of her childhood.After she was gone, the full weight of her father's anger fell onto Ava's shoulders.For years, he hurt her, whipping her skin with his belt until it was bruised and bleeding.
I try to hide my anger from her, the way my hands shake with rage at how she's suffered.I try to force myself to be calm when I feel anything but.Carrying her shuddering body to my bed, I force my fury into a cage for her, to give her a moment of calm.
“I will never let anyone hurt you ever again,” I whisper the promise into her hair.
I've never comforted anyone before.It pulls on feelings that are foreign to me.They crawl and scrape inside my chest, making me ache to smother them with my anger.Anger is all I know; anger, and death, and revenge.She needs my comfort right now, but she deserves my revenge.Her pain belongs to me and me alone.I will make sure everyone who's ever touched her learns this.No one will ever hurt her again, no one but me.
Her tears dry into salty, pink lines and she falls asleep in my arms.When she stirs, the shirt lifts above her hips and I finally see them, the white, streaking scars that blend almost seamlessly into the porcelain skin of her back.At the sight of her scarred skin, my anger becomes a living, breathing creature lurking inside me.It demands to be set free, to seek vengeance for her, to free her from the demons that haunt her.
I punch Shawn's contact on my phone, not letting him utter a word before I bark out an order.“Get me everything you can on Ava Moore's father.Now.”
