AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She sighed. “Seeing is believing, right?”
Worry flared. “You don’t need to prove it. That’s beyond dangerous, considering the circumstances.”
“Don’t you see? It’s the only way he’ll accept this—you guys, me being in your orbit.”
“It’s on him to evolve where that’s concerned, not up to you to drag him there kicking and screaming. You’ve been through enough as it is.”
She frowned. “You mean, the falsified death? Being locked in that basement for days until he trusted I wouldn’t just run at the first opportunity—again?”
“What? You were locked up?”
“Yeah, I thought you knew. That was the overcompensating with the whole pink thing.”
I growled low in my throat. “We didn’t know.”
“Oh.” She pulled her hand from mine and stepped back, then tried to backpedal on her unwitting revelation. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was a fully fitted out room, pink and cozy, lots of amenities and activities, things to keep me busy. Lots of food, the whole nine.”
That meant shit all to me. All that did was that she’d had her freedom inhibited.
By her own father, no less.
For somebody who was supposed to stand apart from the Head Infidels and be on the side of the so-called good, he was certainly displaying a lot of similarities to those fuckers.
Before I could get a word out to voice any of that and drive home just how wrong locking her up had been, no matter what his fucking justifications were, she pulled me up short as she said, “You meant what happened in that room at the auction when you said I’ve been through enough, right? Asher told you, didn’t he?”
“Not the details, just that Carson laid hands on you.”
“Is that why there was no bumping and grinding during that kiss in the corridor, why your hands remained firmly in my hair and didn’t even try to touch me anywhere else?”
“That’s not exactly… I was waiting for you to take the lead, so I could make sure that it was okay for you.”
She pulled away further and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not fragile.”
“I would never think that. But if you were hesitant, or on edge where that’s concerned, it would be totally—”
“Normal?” she bit back. “None of this is normal.”
“That wasn’t the word I was going to use. But when I hugged you earlier when I first walked through the door and found you finally here with us, I felt you, Aurora. You tensed up. Sure, you shook it off quickly, but it was still there initially, and that means—”
“It means nothing.”
“Darlin’, it’s okay,” I said, walking to her.
She took a couple of steps back, then turned away and walked to the shower. Turning it off, she said, “He didn’t get to me. What happened didn’t get to me. I’m not weak like that.”
Jesus. That was a fucking Asher thing if I’d ever heard it. The reason he’d fucking well gone dark and ruined our reunion with Aurora because of it, the reason he wasn’t here with me and her now, and the reason Jonah wasn’t because the guy was reeling from being cut off from him all the while he was in this hella dangerous beast headspace.
“It’s not about weakness,” I told Aurora. I needed her to hear that so badly.
She sank against the vanity and hung her head.
“We established a long time ago that you don’t need to have your guard up with me, that it’s safe for you to let it down,” I said, closing the distance between us. “I get that being apart lately might have—”
She stretched onto her tiptoes, slinked her arms around my neck, then crushed her lips to mine.
Her kiss was forceful, determined, and intense.
Fucking insanely intense.
