Page 105 of Playing With Temptation

His hand went off the center console, grabbed mine, and Jase rested them on my thigh.

“Thanks, baby.”

I knew he hadn’t reached out to hold my hand because I’d given in.

He was holding my hand because he was going to bring something up that could potentially upset me. He’d started it in the hospital when he’d kicked the nurse out so he could ask me in private if I needed a rape kit. Thankfully, I hadn’t needed one. I’d stopped Julian from doing what he’d planned—take something from me that was precious, that was only mine to give.

Then he’d kept holding my hand when he asked me if I knew how Julian died.

That wasn’t a pleasant conversation.

Reliving fighting him off of me as he was trying to tear my clothes off, knowing what he’d planned to do once he had me exposed. Then explaining how he’d snapped and stopped yanking at my clothes, instead waving the gun around, then shooting at the walls and ceiling.

It was hard to explain to Jase, but I guess because he was a cop he could understand that, while it was happening, I wasn’t scared. I was angry. I wanted to get home to my family. I had left my son alone at a grocery store to protect him, but something could’ve happened to him. So, yeah, I was furious.

It wasn’t until after that, I got scared and panicked and I guess that was when Jase had walked in and found me covered in Julian’s blood. It was dumb luck or good luck depending on how you look at it, but when he’d tackled me after I’d grabbed the knife, I just blindly stabbed down, hitting him in the thigh. The blood was slippery and sticky at the same time and he was bleeding a lot.

Obviously, I wasn’t charged with a crime. Julian had kidnapped me, taken me to a house he rented using his dead wife’s credit card, and he’d done this with the intention of causing me great bodily harm.

“How was therapy today?”

There it was—the reason he was holding my hand.

“Good. Dr. Rebecca thinks I’m about ready to graduate with a clean bill of health.”

I’d started seeing Dr. Rebecca two days after the attack. We talked three times a week. But really, we were running out of things to talk about. Hell, we hadn’t talked about the attack at all that week.

“We just talked more about my dad,” I told him. “She calls it boundaries. I call it fuck-you space and I want a lot of space between me and my father and his whole other family. I don’t feel any sort of way about it. I don’t even think about it unless one of his kids calls me. But they’re blocked now, and my boyfriend’s a badass cop so if they bother me, I’m pretty sure my private security is top-notch.

I was done talking about me so I switched the subject.

“So, how was work? Anything more on that Mercer guy?”

“He’s sticking to his story. He swears he killed Samantha and Ashley. No one believes him, but he knows the intimate details. He was there when Ashley was dumped. He confessed. He was appointed a lawyer. He went in front of a judge, pleaded guilty, and he was sentenced. Case is closed but none of us feel right about it. He’s protecting someone. But Radcliff couldn’t find an accomplice.”

“It’s sad there will be no real justice for those women.”

“Agreed.”

“Speaking of a judge. Is your mom and Jonathan still coming down the day before the adoption ceremony?”

“Two days before.”

EEKK!

I loved Janis but she could wind our kids up like crazy.

“If she loads them up on sugar and they run around for a solid four hours again, your mother is banned from our home.”

“I’ll tell her.” Jase chuckled. “And we’re not staying until the end of this thing.”

This thing, was the bachelor auction that Jase had weaseled his way out of.

“We’re staying until the end,” I argued.

“All the kids are at your mom’s tonight,” he told me something I already knew since I’d made the arrangements. “If we only stay for an hour, we can get home and have a five-hour fuck fest and still get some sleep.”

Sometimes he just made it too easy.