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“It was all on me.” My words tumble out quickly. “I’m the one who wandered off when I shouldn’t have. If you want to be angry with anyone, take it out on me.”
His furious eyes narrow. As if he’s calculating every way he’d like to punish me, but doesn’t know where to begin.
I shudder, but decide to take that moment to step closer still.
“Nothing happened to me. It was nothing more than words. He didn’t hurt me; he didn’t touch me.”
“He had his hands on you,” Raven snaps. Both fists are clenched so hard his tattooed knuckles are blanched white.
“And do you want to know what I was thinking the whole time?” I insert myself fully between him and Thorne now. Keeping my hands by my side, I tilt my chin up, keeping eye contact as his nostrils flare, and a tick madly pulses in his jaw. “All I thought of was how I knew, I knew with absolute certainty, that this man would have those hands taken from him. How he’d not only be reduced to nothing more than tiny pieces, but that you’d make him pay for even looking at me.”
My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and I cautiously reach for one of his wrists.
When my fingers brush up against his skin, he jolts.
Fury tightens each line on his face, gauging them into even deeper crevasses.
“It’s ok.” Circling my fingers around his wrist, I lift it toward me just a fraction. His limb feels like a lead weight with how tightly his muscles are locked up.
Raven doesn’t need an invitation to touch me, but I can tell he’s trapped in a battle inside his mind, where he doesn’t know which way to swing first. And right now, I need this man to focus all of that murderous, vengeful energy on me.
As soon as I tug gently on his arm, he strikes.
The hand I’m carefully touching shoots out—all lethal reflexes being the born fighter he is—fisting the shoulder of my dress. The room blurs. I’m spun around, my back colliding with the glass wall overlooking the courtyard. With a single motion, my wolf shoves his hand between my thighs. Cupping my bare pussy through the thin layer of material, digging in with such force, I’m lifted onto my toes.
Thorne and Ky both make a noise of protest, but I shake my head, quickly meeting both of their eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Ven.” Both of them speak his name at the same time, with warning and grave concern.
I brace myself against his biceps. Jesus, it stings and pinches, but I don’t want him to stop if this is what it takes to bring him back from the edge.
“You always know how to take care of me. You told me you’d always help with my pain.” His fingers tighten against the softness of my pussy. There’s no attempt to bring me pleasure in this; it’s solely his need to stake a claim over my body.
In the same way I’m still coated in the dried evidence of Thorne’s need to possess me in the most primal of ways.
“If that’s what you need…I can give it to you, but, I’m sore.” I wince a little as he goes to prove my point and tightens the point of contact against my pussy.
That hint of weakness captures Raven’s attention, and he slams the other palm against the window beside my head.
“You’re too fucking easy to break.” He sneers at me.
I nod, holding his gaze. But he’s talking to me, and that surely has to be a good sign. One that confirms I’ve maybe succeeded in reaching through the churning inferno to reach out a hand toward the version of him who takes care of me.
Even if it is in our own fucked up way.
“Feel that?” I squeeze his forearm, reaching down between my thighs. “I belong to you. This is yours, Raven. There’s no one else outside of this room that can touch me.”
His eyes flare, followed by a warning growl.
“Ven,” Thorne repeats his name. But I don’t dare break eye contact with the man consuming my vision and pinning me to the wall.
Ky comes around beside him. Sensing the tiny shift and grabbing hold of the opportunity. “You want to keep holding her, baby? That’s fine. She can stay by your side all night long.” Miracle man that he is, somehow Ky keeps his voice steady, but I know how challenging it must be to sound this calm. “I think what our girl needs right now is to sleep. Hell, we all fucking do after today.”
Ky’s the only one of us who can steer us away from disaster right now and defuse this bomb about to go off. Even though I’m sure he’s as exhausted as I am.
“Can you do that for me? Keep hold of me? Please.” I bring my hands up to lightly rest over Raven’s shoulders.
When what I really want to say is, don’t let me go.
