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I sighed against his mouth and the hand that was holding my arm slid down, curling around my back and holding me tight to his body.
And it felt right.
Which was stupid.
But it felt right in his arms. It felt safe. It felt like I belonged there.
Whoa.
What the hell?
That was absurd.
As if having a similar internal dilemma, Reign's head shifted and lifted, his breath warm on my cheek.
Free of the contact, I sucked in a shaky breath, trying to pull myself together. Because that was how I felt- pulled apart. Unraveled.
He unraveled me.
Okay. I needed to get a grip.
It was a kiss.
Just a kiss.
“Eyes,” he commanded.
My gaze lifted and found his. Fierce. Mean enough to stare my demons down.
“Don't ever run away from me,” he said, half-warning, half-pleading.
And I was so shocked to see someone like him, someone so strong and terrifying, begging for something from me that I didn't hesitate to agree. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeated, dropping my jaw, then releasing my hips. But his hand moved down and grabbed my hand and started pulling, practically dragging, me back across the field to the house.
He kicked off his boots inside the door, still holding my hand, then walked barefoot toward the kitchen, pouring himself a coffee, black. Then he turned to me, letting my hand go, grabbing my hips, and hauling me up onto the counter. “Think you can manage to keep your ass planted there for a minute?” he asked, his words hard but there was a trace of humor in his voice.
He turned back to the coffee, poured another cup, then went about adding cream and sugar to it before he handed it to me.
“You don't like it black, say something,” he instructed as I took a sip and sighed. “Now why the fuck you running?”
I looked down at my coffee cup, lowering it onto my thigh. “You wanted to talk.”
“And you didn't wanna explain the truth of what happened to you?”
“Something like that,” I conceded.
“Babe, I'm gonna protect you... need to know the facts.”
“I don't even know where to start.”
“At the beginning.”**It was a bad day. I was on my second week at the new job my father had assigned me to and I felt like all I did was mess up then scramble to fix it before everyone else realized how incompetent I was. Before the rumors about nepotism started, as they always did. Until I couldn't take them anymore and asked my father to transfer me. It was a chicken move and I knew it, but I didn't like people knowing I had positions of power that I technically hadn't earned in the least.
So I wasn't in the best of moods. I had stormed into my apartment and went straight to the red. Wine, that is. And I drank a bottle. By myself. On an empty stomach. I was a stumbling mess going to my bedroom, reaching into my closet for pajamas. I settled on the pink silk shorts and the white tank top and struggled into them, falling once in the process and banging my shin hard enough to see stars and get an almost immediate bruise.
“Oww,” I whined, sitting down on the edge of my bed, rubbing my leg. “Perfect end to my day,” I grumbled, feeling the wine lead me steadily toward self-pity.
I crawled up to the top of my bed, sitting back on my heels for a second, staring out of the floor-to ceiling windows that surrounded me, taking in the view I far too often took for granted, before flinging myself forward into the soft pillows, slipping under the sheets, and having a pity party that ended in tear-covered pillows.
I heard nothing.
Whether that was from the wine or their abilities, I would never know.
All I knew was that one moment I was fast asleep, the next someone was on top of me, a hand over my mouth as I opened it to scream. The weight of his body held my pelvis in place and I was momentarily too stunned to do anything with my hands.
“Hurry the fuck up. V is waiting,” another voice said and my foggy eyes searched around in the dark, not able to find the source of the other voice and feeling the panic well up strong. A rolling in my belly. A heartbeat that felt like it was lodged in the back of my throat. A chill that sent goosebumps all over my body.
The guy on top of me reached behind him into his pocket.
Then I saw a needle.
And I remembered I had arms. And while they may have felt weak and heavy from wine and sleep, I reached out, raking them across his face, pressing as hard against his eyes as my squeamish stomach would allow.
“Fucking bitch,” he howled, leaning forward and stabbing the needle into the side of my neck.
Things went slow and fuzzy for a second, but the last thing I got to see before I passed out was the claw marks I had scratched across his face.I woke up slowly. And the first thing that hit me was the cold. It was the kind of cold that settled into your bones, that made you feel like you would never be warm again. The second thing to hit me was the pain in my wrists. The third, the pounding in my head. The fourth, I was in a bed. A bed that wasn't my own. The fifth, the smell. Urine. It smelled like urine.
Then I remembered. My apartment. The wine. Hitting my shin. Crying myself to sleep. Men in my room. The pressure of his weight on my hips. His hand on my mouth. His skin under my fingers. The stab in my neck.
I flew upward, my shoulders screaming as I nearly yanked them out of their sockets before I realized they were bound to the headboard. I yelped, settling back down, twisting my head around to see the ropes holding me in place on a bed that smelled musty and old. The rope was tight, pulling at the delicate skin on my wrists. I rolled onto my side, pushing my wrists together, and looking around.
