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“I intend to, baby,” I answer, pressing my lips to hers. “Every damn day.”

After one last kiss, she pulls back. “Enough mush. I need to be clean.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I grab the rag from the edge of the tub and dunk it under the water before pouring some of her favorite watermelon body wash on it. As I stare at her, trying to decide where to start and how I can do this without hurting her too badly, my mind begins to spin.

The bruises aren’t as dark as they were a few days ago.

But I still can’t stand to look at them.

Purple bleeds into green and yellow across her ribs, stretching around her side in nasty, uneven patches. Her cheek still has a large red splotch and the swelling around her nose hasn’t completely gone down.

Not that I’d expect it to.

She’s healing.

I know she is but it still looks like someone tried to destroy her.

Fucking Leigh-Ann.

My hand begins to shake as my thoughts turn to the person responsible for doing this to my sweet girl. I’ve never, in my life, thought about putting my hands on a woman and I still wouldn’t.

But the rage I feel for Leigh-Ann and her actions…

It’s a thin damn line.

“Stop, baby,” Lennon whispers, placing her fingers along my jaw and directing my gaze back up to hers. I shake my head.

“Stop what?”

Her head cocks to the side and she shoots me a look. “You know damn well what. It’s the same thing we’ve been talking about for days. This is not your fault.”

“I can’t see it that way, Len.”

She lets out a huff. “Well you better figure it out because that’s the way it is. You. Did. Not. Do. This.”

“Yeah, but it happened because of me,” I fire back. She and I have been over this so many damn times in the past five days and we’re honestly just going in circles. But neither one of us will give in.

“No,” she snaps, shaking her head, a fierce determination in her hazel eyes. “This happened because one scary, fucked up person found two more sad, lonely people and he played them against us. End of story.”

“Lennon—”

“No,” she interrupts. “No more. Either help me get clean or hand me the washcloth.”

I release a sigh and nod. “Yeah, okay.”

My focus turns back to her body and I begin gliding the soap over her skin. I’m being as gentle as I can but I notice every wince, every intake of air and every time she closes her eyes to get through the pain.

It fucking guts me.

I have to force my hand to keep working the soap into a lather because as much as I hate to see how much agony she’s in, I know my girl and if I don’t help her, she’ll attempt to do this herself.

And that wouldn’t go well.

Once her skin is finally clean, I grab the cup next to the bathtub and fill it with water before pouring it over her body. She relaxes and releases a breath as the soap washes away.

“How’s that, baby?”