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I didn’t like the fact that she actually made me feel things other than anger and resolve to get the situation under control.
“I can handle a lot more than a knock to the head.”
She took another step toward me. “I’m not talking about your head.” Her voice was soft.
I grew angry and felt my body tighten even more.
“I’ve seen men like you many times.”
“Yeah?” I bit that word out and leaned forward even more, the twine she used to secure me digging into my wrists.
“You’re hurting on the inside.”
I clenched my jaw and growled low, which had her stopping, her eyes widening in fear. “You don’t know a fucking thing about me.” My words were like acid, my tone sharp and hate-filled. I didn’t like the fact that she thought she could read me.
I didn’t like the fact that she could read me.
I watched as she pulled her shoulders back and tipped her chin up in defiance. That reaction took me off guard for a moment. No one acted like that toward me, not even my brothers. I got off on people being afraid, the fact that they didn’t know if I’d snuff their life out as easily as if I were blowing out a candle.
“You don’t think I’ve ever met men like you?”
I slowly smirked. “Baby, I don’t think you’ve ever met a man like me.” I narrowed my eyes and bared my teeth, pulling at the binds once more as I leaned my upper body toward her.
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I felt my cock twitch as arousal whipped through me. And my body’s reaction to her… my reaction to her, angered me even more, because she made me feel something other than the void that had filled me for so long.
She walked a step closer to me and stopped at the edge of the bed. For long seconds, she just stared at me, no emotion on her face, although I could read it in her eyes. She was afraid of me, of what I was capable of.
Or maybe she was afraid of the situation.
Maybe she was afraid of herself.
Would she believe me if I told her I wouldn’t hurt her? Would I believe myself if I said that? The very thought of laying my hands on her gave me this twisted pain in my belly, this disgust in the pit of my soul. What was it about this woman that turned me inside out, that had me questioning who I was and how I acted?
And all for what… because she showed me kindness in the face of fear? Because she took me to her home and refused to submit to me when she was aware of who and what I was—that I wasn’t a good man?
I didn’t know what it was about her, but everything inside me was drawn to this woman. Everything said I had to be close to her.
“You were talking in your sleep,” she finally said after long seconds of this terse silence.
My spine was ramrod stiff, the blood rushing through my veins. I remembered what I’d been dreaming about, the nightmare of my past and how my father was, the abuse he used to deliver to me on a daily basis. The fact that she’d heard anything related to that had this… vulnerability settling within me. It enraged me, made me feel weak. It made me feel bared.
I stiffened impossibly more, my muscles contracting, the rope digging into my wrists until pain slammed into me. I wanted that discomfort. It made me feel—know—I was here and alive, able to fight.
And the only thing I could do in retaliation was be angry and direct it toward her, even though it wasn’t her fault. Even though that was the last thing I wanted to do.
Chapter Nine
Kimber
This emotion filled me, becoming lodged in my throat. I saw the way he instantly reacted when I’d told him he spoke in his sleep, knew that even though I hadn’t said what I heard, Cullen knew I was very aware of the abuse he’d suffered.
Here was this big strong man seeming unbreakable, yet while he’d been unconscious, he’d cried out for his father to stop hitting him… begged the man who should have protected him to take his anger out on him and not his brothers.
He wanted to seem like he was this stone-cold person, this rage coming from him, the wall he’d clearly built around himself to keep people away was actually to protect himself.
We were more alike than he knew.
Yet we had gone on different paths in the face of childhood abuse, polar opposites in all things it seemed. But we were one in the same.
And all I wanted to do was go to Cullen and hold him. Because I knew no one had done that to him… for him.
