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“Anytime.” He winks and she tenses in my arms.
“Let’s hope it’s not necessary again, huh?”
“You never know with this asshole,” he says nodding to me.
“I’m taking her upstairs. Tell the others that she’s okay.”
“Don’t worry, they know she’s in safe hands.”
I nod, quickly taking off for the stairs that will take us away from our audience. I stalk through my bedroom and carry her into the bathroom.
Dropping her feet to the floor, I knock the toilet lid down and settle her on top of it. “Okay?”
She nods but no words pass her lips, although when I stand, her eyes run down the length of my torso. I’m already hard again, but she’s exhausted, barely able to keep her eyes open.
“Soon,” I promise her, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear.
Turning my back on her, I begin filling the bath and pour in some of the girly pink bubble bath Ellen insisted on buying for us.
“You’re drawing me a bath?” she asks, her voice soft and unsure.
“No.” Turning around, I stare her dead in the eyes. “I’m drawing us a bath.”
Her lips twitch with the beginning of a smile, but she’s soon distracted when I toe off my boots and drop my pants and boxers. Taking Hadley’s hand, I tug her up gently, gripping the hem of my shirt and peeling it off her body.
The angry bruises on her upper arms taunt me, making my teeth grind, and I desperately try to temper the rage coursing through my veins.
Some fucker touched her… hurt her… Bile races up my throat and I swallow it down.
“I’ll find whoever it was,” I promise her.
“No, Cole. I can’t lose you,” she says in a panic. “You need to find a way to get out. You can’t live like this. He’ll come for you next.”
I hear every word. I know how true they are, but me making promises that I can’t keep isn’t going to help either of us right now, so instead of responding, I take her hand in mine and step into the hot water, encouraging her to follow my lead.
For once, I’m going to do something right and look after my girl as she deserves to be looked after.
Chapter Thirty-One
Hadley
I wake with a start. Fear trickles through me, but I instantly relax when I find Cole sleeping soundly beside me.
You’re okay.
My thoughts go to last night. The attack... everything that happened after.
God, Cole had fucked me until I could barely stand. But I’d needed it.
We’d needed it.
A delicious shiver works through me as I push back the sheet and try to wiggle out from under his arm.
“Running from me already, Dove?”
“I need to pee. I’ll be back.”
Cole releases me and I fight a smile, remembering how gentle he’d been with me last night. He’d cleaned and massaged and kissed every inch of me he could reach and then wrapped me into a fluffy towel and carried me to bed. Then he’d pulled me into his arms and told me to sleep.
