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“Did you…?”
“Not me.” He shouldn’t give her any details. It was club business. And the most sensitive kind. If she decided to go to the cops, she’d have information that could take down his entire club. Something about her called to him, though. Told him to trust her.
And he didn’t trust anyone outside his brothers.
“Look, Steph, what I have to say might seem counter-intuitive, but you can’t go to the authorities with anything that happened.”
She stiffened against him. Rigid as a two-by-four.
“My club—” he began.
“Is safe,” she interjected. “I won’t say anything, Maverick. Your club saved me, and I’d never want you to have any repercussions because of that. I just need to know it’s over. That I don’t have to look over my shoulder or they won’t have the chance to do that to someone else.”
“Shh.” He held a finger over her soft lips, and damned if his cock didn’t twitch in approval. He wanted to replace that finger with his mouth. If only he could bend more than one inch without stabbing rib pain.
Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “Shark’s dead. He was an evil motherfucker who did things to women that would make your skin crawl. We’re stilling finding out shit about that man we didn’t know. He will not hurt you or any other woman ever again. He’s fucking dead, and his whole gang is going to follow.”
Stephanie’s eyes widened, and she swallowed hard. Her head moved in an up and down direction as he watched her process his words. “Okay,” she finally whispered. “Th-thank you.”
Her grateful gaze reminded him of how she looked at him when he goaded King away from her after he’d removed her pants. Then, when King turned his attention to Maverick, Stephanie had done the unthinkable.
The ice in his blood turned to a fiery rage as he recalled her fierce struggle against the handcuffs. She’d fought so hard she’d broken her wrist. And, Jesus, she’d practically begged King to return to her and finish the job, all to spare Maverick the torture of the iron.
With their gazes locked, some invisible yet powerful force passed between them. A connection, like they were now linked because of this experience. It made what she’d done, trying to save him, all the more significant. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he growled at her.
She flinched but held his stare and didn’t bother to ask for clarification of the question that he’d posed from out of nowhere. “I couldn’t.” Her eyes squeezed shut, and she shook her head. “I didn’t want him to…because of me.” A strangled sob left her throat. “You stopped him from hurting me. But the cost to you…” A tear escaped her closed eyes. “God, Maverick. I’m so sorry for what he did to you. I just couldn’t lie there and let him do it. I would have done anything to spare you that pain. I shouldn’t say this, but a bullet was too easy for him. He deserved so much worse. All of those men did.”
Her scrunched face and shaking head told him she was fighting against horrifying memories. Memories that would plague her, both of them, for a long fucking time. No one, until he met his brothers, had stood up for him, had sacrificed anything for him. His own junkie-whore of a mother wouldn’t lift a finger to protect him from the johns who wanted more than just a piece of her used-up pussy. None of his foster parents or siblings spared a second glance when he had the shit beat out of him over and over again. No one so much as gave up a snack to make sure his belly didn’t cramp with hunger. Not until he met Zach, who’d saved him from making the ultimate mistake.
Yet here was a woman who didn’t know him from Adam, willing to withstand the worst torture imaginable for a female, and all to end his pain. Willing to sacrifice her body to save him.
He’d never met such a woman. Didn’t know they existed. Because they never had in his world. Something stirred within him, but he shook his head and willed it away. Damn pain meds making him feel ridiculous emotions.
“Shit, wildcat,” he said, lifting her chin with one finger. “Let me see those gorgeous eyes.”
Her lashes lifted, revealing eyes swimming in tears. “You are fucking fierce,” he whispered as he lowered his head. His chest screamed in pain, but in two seconds, when he finally tasted her mouth, it would all disappear.
Just as he was a breath away, the door flew open, and in marched the nasty piece of work who called herself a nurse.
“Sir!” She gasped at the sight of him in the bed as though she’d walked in on him fucking Stephanie six ways to Sunday.
