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“Summer!”
Then I was being pulled away, back toward the stairs, my head twisting over my shoulder to stare at the chair as it slowly slipped out of my field of vision.
But that didn't make the memory fade. It didn't make me hear the sounds of music and men and women as I was pulled into the main area of the building where everyone was happily partying.
“Reign!” Cash's voice called and it was then that I realized who had been pulling me along. Cash.
A silence fell.
Followed by, “What the fuck?”
Reign.
That was Reign.
And, for some reason, that slipped through.
My head snapped upward to find him storming across the room toward me, his eyes hot, his brows drawn together.
“She was washing the sheets,” Cash supplied.
“So why the fuck does she look like she's seen a fucking ghost?”
“Reign,” Cash said, waiting for his brother's eyes to find his. “She was washing the sheets. In the basement.” Realization started to dawn on Reign, but Cash continued. “The chair. The cuffs...”
“Fuck,” Reign growled, turning back to me. His hand reached out, rubbing his knuckles against my jaw. “Fucking stupid,” he said to himself. “Come on,” he said, his hand moving behind me to slide up my back and I shrieked, arching away from him.
Reign's eyes flew to Cash who shook his head, confused.
“Okay,” Reign said to me, pulling his hand away, putting it on my arm instead. “Okay, babe. Come on. Let's go back to my room. Okay?”
He didn't give me time to answer as he started steering me back toward the hallway, pulling me into his room and locking the door.
He paused, looking at me for a minute, before he came toward me, turning me, and pulling my shirt up.
“Fuck,” he said quietly. “Fuck,” he repeated, louder, his fingers moving out to stroke over the raised scars. “Babe... talk to me,” he said, letting my shirt fall, and turning me again.
I swallowed hard wanting, yet again, to purge it all to him. “The handcuffs,” I said.
“The handcuffs,” he prompted.
“In your basement,” I went on. “They had handcuffs in the basement. But only...” I took a shaky breath. “But only on the days when the knife came out.”
“I'm so fucking stupid,” he said, shaking his head, not able to look at me.
“It's not your fault,” I said, shrugging.
“I told you to wash the sheets,” he countered.
“Yeah but you weren't the one to cuff me to a chair and cut me up.”
He sighed, running a hand over the scruff on his cheek.
Then he came at me. Fast.
So fast that I expected to be crushed to his chest.
But his arms went slowly around me. He moved us toward the stripped bed, sitting on the edge and pulling me into his lap. “He's gonna pay,” he said into my hair.
I felt myself straighten. “Reign...”
“He's gonna pay. No one fucks with what's mine.”
His?
His?
What was that supposed to mean?
I wasn't his.
I wasn't anybody's.
“Reign...”
“What'd I say about you sayin' my name?” he asked.
My brows drew together. “You like it?” I asked.
“Like it a lot,” he agreed. “So now you're going to go plant your ass in the bathroom. And I'm gonna go get the sheets. Then you're gonna plant your ass on the bed. With me.”
With that, I was pushed off his lap. And he was gone.
And I was left with the distinct impression that being in bed with him, this time, didn't mean sleeping or watching TV reruns.SixteenSummerReign came back an hour later, slamming the door, locking it, and not even bothering to look my way. So I had been worrying myself to near ulcers about him potentially wanted to have sex with me (okay... maybe it was less worry and more... anticipation) for no reason.
He shuffled around. I imagined, making the bed. Then I heard his boots hit the floor.
“You sleeping in there tonight or what?” he said, his voice a casual.
I got up, pulling off my sweatshirt, and moved back toward the bedroom where Reign immediately flicked off the light and laid still.
So, yeah, we were sleeping sleeping together.
I squished the weird surge of disappointment, trying to convince myself that it was for the best. He was bad news. I was a good girl. Not to mention I really wasn't in a place where I should even consider such things. I had just been kidnapped, beat, and starved for months. Months. And I was considering having sex with a relative stranger just days after getting away. Days.
I was having some pathetic White Knight syndrome.
Except Reign couldn't be further from a White Knight.
I slid into the empty side of the bed, curling up on my side away from him, staring into the relative darkness of the room. Behind me, Reign was still. Still for long enough that I figured he had fallen asleep. I let out a long breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, and closed my eyes.
But they sprang right back open a few seconds later when Reign's hand landed hard on my hip, pulling it backward until I was laying flat on my back. Then his body was half covering mine, his forearm pressed into one of my sides, his palm flat on the mattress on the other side.
“What are you doing?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat speed up, his warmth sinking into my skin and sending a small shiver through my body.
“They hurt you?” he asked, making me jerk back unexpectedly.
“What?” I asked, my voice airy.
“Those fuckers... did they...”
“No,” the word rushed out of me, frantic to be shared. Of all the things that had happened to me, of all the things that were whispered promises of what was to come, it never got there. “No,” I said again, more firmly. “It never got that far. They came in at night, drunk, and would... grope me and threaten me. But they weren't allowed to... do that.”
“Thank fuck,” Reign said, his breath exhaling, his body losing some of its tension.
“Reign,” I said again, looking up at his face- the unfair perfection there. His hazel eyes were lowered and I found my hand reaching out, stroking down the side of his face. His gaze flew to mine, intense, searing into me. “What are you doing?”
