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“Yeah.” He looked behind him as two young girls entered the room.
“I’m Ryder.” The red-head girl looked shaken, terrified actually, as his gaze zoomed in on the visible bruising around her neck. “This is Theo.”
“Come on in.” Loch stepped back for them to enter. He introduced the girls. “This is my wife, Sage, and Allegra, Hayes’ friend.” The impact of his statement hit Ryder. The girl needed protection.
“You know we don’t do that right?” Theo asked before he could. “We aren’t babysitters.”
Sage’s gaze narrowed in on his friend. “She doesn’t need a babysitter, you big oaf. She needs to disappear.”
“Did she just seriously call me an oaf?” Theo’s words called for insult, but the idiot was laughing.
“What happened?” Ryder asked, looking to Allegra. He wanted her story, not a retelling.
Shuffling her feet, she looked around the room, unable to meet anyone’s gaze. “He gets angry sometimes.”
“Who?” Theo growled. As much as he liked to yank a person’s chains, he didn’t tolerate abuse on women any more than the rest of their team.
She swallowed as tears welled in her light green gaze. “My father.”
Sage’s heart broke as she listened to Allegra tell her story. The abuse she endured for years. Believing it was her own fault. The young girl had suffered so much in her fifteen years on this earth. Far more than anyone should.
As Ryder and Theo explained their plan and how timing was everything, Sage and Lorraine held Allegra’s hand through it all. They absorbed her pain and tears. They smiled when she finally felt relief, knowing her life was g
oing to change.
“You have to know though, Allegra, before we do any of this, before we move you, Allegra Wellington is dead. She can’t come back. You have to cut all ties.” She vibrated at the seriousness of Ryder’s words.
“Like witness protection?” Lorraine asked.
The two men shared a look as Theo answered without actually answering. “Better.”
“I don’t have anyone, anyways,” Allegra said sadly.
“Then we should go now. The faster we get you away, the easier it’s going to be. Especially if the scumbag decides to report you as missing.”
As they left, a hollow sadness filled Sage’s heart as she watched Allegra climb in the back of a large SUV. Lochlan’s arms circling her waist offered the comfort she needed.
“She’ll be free,” he whispered in her ear. “She’ll get to live.”
“I know. I just hate that I can relate so closely with her. I know her pain and feelings of helplessness.”
“You were never helpless, Sage. You’re a fighter, always have been, always will be.” He turned her cheek, and their mouths touched, breathless anticipation made her pulse skyrocket.
“Take me home,” she whispered, ready to be completely free with her husband.
Chapter Seventeen
Words are not written in stone, but in your heart.
Loch and Sage crashed through the front door of their home, mouths united. Her legs tangled around his waist, stripping their clothes while not losing contact with one another. Her gentle moan as his hard cock brushed against her sex had Loch rushing to their bed. Forgoing any foreplay, he unapologetically dropped her onto the mattress, disposed of the rest of his own clothes before tackling hers. He took a moment to admire her naked beauty in the bathing sunlight from the window. The dips and curves of her womanly shape made his mouth water with anticipation.
“I love the way you look right now.”
“You love me naked,” she countered with a seductive grin.
Christ, where did she learn that?
“Your soft flesh”—he trailed a finger from her in-step to her thigh— “this creamy skin.” Her eyes closed as his fingers brushed across her swollen nub. “I could eat you for days and never tire.”
