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“Seriously?”
“You can change it,” I said automatically. Another knee-jerk reaction I had learned over the past few months. Don't disagree with the men. Always try to appease them. Save yourself the beating. Except on the days when they called my Dad. Those days I disagreed. I took the beatings. I practically asked for them.
“Nah, babe. I said you pick. You picked.”
Then he left it at that, laying there, watching the TV.
I cuddled under the blankets, smelling deeply of man. Something undefinable, but familiar. A trace of cologne. Of just plain old male musk. A non-floral smelling laundry detergent.
And then, to my absolute horror, my stomach growled ferociously, sounding like I had monsters trapped inside.
Reign's head turned to me automatically and I tried to ignore his eyes on me. “You're hungry, you say you're hungry,” he said simply, getting up off the bed.
“No. It's okay. I can wait till morning. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” he asked, turning back. “They didn't feed you? You're used to bein' hungry?”
I felt my face blush. Which was ridiculous. It wasn't like I had starved myself. “They fed me when they felt like it.”
“How often did they feel like it?”
I sucked in air. “Every few days if I was lucky.”
“Fuck.”
“It's really no big deal. I can wa...”
“How long you been waiting?”
“What?” I asked, pulling my knees to my chest.
“How long since they last fed you?”
Oh. Right.
“Um,” I started.
“The fact that you have to fuckin' think about that shit is why you're getting your ass up, coming in the kitchen, and stuffin' your face.”
Two days. It had been two days.
But Reign was gone and I was jumping out of bed, holding onto the waistband of my pants, and following behind.
As if sensing my presence, he said, “Do I even want to fucking know what they threw at you when they did feed you?”
No, he didn't. And I didn't have a choice about eating it either.
“No.”
“Fuck.”
And then there was a lot of movement. Pots and pans being put on the stove. Items being pulled out of the cabinets and refrigerator.
“It's late. I can just have some cereal or something...” I supplied, watching him move around, his strong back muscles turning and twisting in an altogether too sexy way for three o'clock in the morning.
He simply ignored me, moving around some more. Pouring water into a pot. Chopping something right on the counter. Because, well, it was butcher block.
“Can I help with anything?”
I wasn't really a cook. Okay. I wasn't a cook in any way shape or form. Dad always had servants for that. But being a motherless kid, I had spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Mae, our very heavy, very jovial Italian cook. And at her apron tails, I was taught it was always proper to offer to help, even if you didn't know what you were doing.
“You just spent three months in a hellhole having god-knows what done to you and you don't think you've earned the right to relax and have someone take care of you?”
Take care of me?
Was that what he was doing?
It was.
And it was too good.
I just...
Okay. I was a little emotional.
And by 'a little emotional' I meant I was pretty sure I was about to cry in front of him. And not just cry. Ugly snot cry. I turned away, looking off into the living room, deep breathing.
“Can I put music on?”
“As long as it's vinyl, yeah.”
I all but flew across the room, making a show of looking through the records, pretending to ignore my shaking hands. I knew I was dealing with some heavy shit, especially heavy considering what a pampered life I had led, but I needed to keep my head on straight. I couldn't go all hysterical woman because someone was taking care of me. That was what you were supposed to do when you find someone in need of help, right? Even when you were a big, bad, criminal biker dude.
I grabbed a record I recognized, lifted the needle, and dropped it. There was a hum for a long second before the sound came flooding out of the speakers. I backed up toward the couch, lowering myself down. Planning on just keeping my distance for a few minutes. But the couch was one of those leather couches. The well-loved ones. The ones that felt buttery to the touch. And as soon as I had myself laid up on it, comforted with the idea of not being startled awake by someone trying to hurt me, I fell fast asleep.
And I had nightmares.
But they weren't nightmares.
They were memories.
**“Wakey wakey!” one of them, Deke I had heard one of the other guys call him, said. No. Not said. Screamed. Right in my ear. Making me lurch up in bed so fast I forgot all about being tied to it and the ropes seared at the already torn skin on my wrists, the pain at once so intense I had to choke down the bile in my throat.
“Almost pissed the bed,” Martin said, chuckling.
The smell of them was always what got me the most. The cigarette smoke that seemed to seep out of their pores. Mixed with the vodka on their breaths. The almost overpowering smell of body odor.
You could literally smell them coming down the hall if you were awake.
Being I had been fast asleep, it assaulted me at once, cutting through the fog of sleep like a strong wind.
“She really is a pretty one,” Deke said, his fingers reaching out for my face, stroking down the side of my neck. “So ripe,” he said, his hand moving over my breast that had no protection of a bra from his prying fingers. “She needs a good fucking, don't you think, Mart?”
“Damn right. From both ends at once, I'd say.”
“Yeah,” he said, his hand sliding down my belly. “They always like it like that, don't they?”
I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Or pleading. They weren't supposed to touch me. V made that point clear.
“She gets hurt when I say she gets hurt. How I say she gets hurt. Hands and dicks off otherwise.” Those had been his words.
