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The look he gave me then made my belly turn and twist deliciously. It was something like how I was sure I looked at him.
Maybe, just maybe, it was love there.
"Don't deserve someone as clean as you..."
"Clean? I still don't think I understand what that means."
"Clean. Good. Untouched by all the ugly shit life has to offer."
Oh.
Well, that was really sweet in a way. But I was no pretty virginal girl to be put up on a pedestal either.
"Well, I don't know about that. I've been kidnapped and beaten. Been around a shoot-out and a drive-by. I've been questioned by police and had to hide out in a fallout shelter and a survivalist camp. I think I might have a little dirt on me now." He looked a little pained at that and I knew it was because he felt responsible for it all. "Plus, I am going to teach girls how to beat the ever loving hell out of other people for a living. So I think we should be just fine."
"Seem pretty sure of yourself," he said, losing the darkness and running his fingers up my thigh.
"Uh huh," I agreed, putting my coffee on the table and leaning my head on his shoulder. He curled and got rid of his too, wrapping me up.
"I have to leave in about ten. Reign and Repo want to come up and see their women and kids so I have to get the SUV back to them."
I nodded at that, both understanding and disappointed.
Understanding because I had come to really like Maze and Summer and it was clear that they were struggling with being away from their husbands so much. Especially, I felt, when they were both pregnant. That was something they wanted to be able to share with them.
But disappointed because it wasn't enough.
One night just made me want him all the more.
But it wasn't forever.
He said he was going to visit.
And the compound would be done soon.
Everything was going to work out.NINETEENPennyI woke up the next night to a hand over my mouth.
And, well, most of my days being as full of training as they were, I reacted before my eyes even opened.
The room was the kind of dark that came from a room being windowless, meaning pitch, so I couldn't see anything as I struck out at the body beside my bed, trying to knock it off balance.
I reached my arm across my body, grabbing the wrist of the hand at my mouth, knowing my arm was stronger when used to pull across my body than away from it, and I managed to yank the arm free.
I was no hero.
Lo taught me better than that.
As soon as my mouth was free, I sucked in air to scream.
"Penny, sh," Duke's quiet whisper said, stilling me.
"Duke?" I gasped, my hand going to my heart where it was trying to burst from my chest.
"That wasn't the smoothest of moves, Ace," Maze said quietly, making me stiffen. What the hell was she still doing awake?
"I don't know. Fear can make for a pretty good aphrodisiac," Summer piped in.
"What are you guys doing awake?" I whispered back. "Isn't pregnancy supposed to make you tired?"
"It does. First thing in the morning when you have to get out of bed. Then during the afternoon. All evening. But never when it is actually bed time because that's when the little devils like to move, kick, squish your bladder, and otherwise make you miserable," Maze informed me.
"Hey Maze. Summer," Duke said, his loud voice not really capable of being completely quite and I cringed at the idea of him waking one of the kids up. Especially Ferryn who was the worst to try to get to bed at night, despite being the oldest.
"Go on. Take her away," Maze said. "Have the wild, sweaty kind of fun I miss."
"I know, right?" Summer added. "Reign seems to think I will break now so when we..."
"Okay, a little bit too much information about my brothers," Duke said, but sounded amused as I felt his hand close over my wrist and pull me to my feet. "Get some sleep, guys. Reign and Repo will be up in the morning to spend some time with you."
So then we went to our special room.
And Duke gave me wild and sweaty.
Then, right before morning, slow and sweet.
He didn't make it every single night. Two days, I didn't see him at all. But he came as much as possible. Sometimes to sleep with me, sometimes to just have coffee in the morning. Once, he came for the sole purpose of watching me train. It did, of course, make me horribly self-conscious because there was nothing pretty about being covered in sweat and dirt and, too a much smaller extent, blood.
"Duke," Lo had called out suddenly, making both of us start. "Come over here and attack Penny."
