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After that first time, he always changed his sheets to the white ones when he hurt me. The sight of the bright red on the pristine white cotton excited him.
Manuel took one look at the needle and medical thread in the doctor’s hands and put a bullet in the man’s head. Then he’d taken me back to the mansion and locked me in my room for three days with no food. The only water I was allowed was from my bathroom sink, so at least I didn’t die of dehydration.
Even as I tried to shake those memories away, Garret had been making promises. He’d kill whoever had put the look of fear in my eyes if I just gave him a name. But I didn’t want him anywhere near Manuel. My stepbrother was a psychopath. He might be stupid as fuck, but he was also dangerous.
And I already cared about Garret too much to risk losing him to the monster whose greatest pleasure was to make me cry.
Those awful memories had slowly faded a little each night over the last three weeks, though. As my trust in Garret grew, the hold Manuel still held over my psyche faded a little more, too.
Stepping into the sexy shoes, I licked my lips in anticipation of this date. Garret might not have labeled it as that, but I could tell he wanted to.
I secretly did too.
But more than anything, I was hoping for another kiss.
Once I had my new coat on, I grabbed the nicest bag I had—a cute little black clutch that was yet another thrift store find—and walked out of my bedroom. As I did, Kim came out of her own room, dressed for work in a pair of matching sweats, her hair up in a knot, and her duffel bag full of all her work outfits tossed over her shoulder.
She took one look at me and stopped in her tracks. I didn’t miss the envy in her eyes as she raked her gaze over me from head to toe, her nose flaring when she noted the Louis Vuitton shoes that I was wearing. She pressed her lips into a hard line as she lifted her eyes back to mine. “Finally giving that pussy up to Volkov’s lackey?”
I smirked, her jealousy amusing me more than anything else. “My man is no one’s lackey.” I stepped around her. “He has his own men he’s in charge of. Didn’t you know? His future brother-in-law is Ryan Vitucci.”
She made a choking sound, and I bit back a laugh as I walked toward the door. Making sure my keys and phone were tucked into my clutch, I opened the door and instantly heard a deep growl.
Head snapping up, I met Garret’s green gaze, and my need for another taste of him doubled. He was always in a suit, but when he hung out with me in my room, he usually tossed his jacket aside and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and undid the top few buttons. I liked seeing the ink on his arms and what little peeked through on his chest.
None of his tattoos was showing at the moment. He was wearing a long black coat over a black-on-black suit. I couldn’t help wondering how soft the material of his black button-down was, and before I even realized what I was doing, my fingers were skimming over his chest.
His breath hissed out in pleasure as I let my hand travel lower. But then I felt the hardness of his gun tucked into the holster beneath his suit jacket and jerked my hand back.
“You can’t go without that thing for even one night?” I sassed him as I stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind me. I heard Kim mutter something snide behind me because I’d closed the door in her face, and I bit the inside of my bottom lip to keep from laughing.
“I don’t go anywhere unarmed, blue eyes,” he said, putting his hand to the small of my back as we walked toward the elevator. “You should at least know that much about me by now.”
“Fucking gangster,” I grumbled, but from the tilt of my lips, he could easily tell I was teasing him.
“You look gorgeous,” he said, lowering his head to kiss my temple. “It’s going to be hard for me to share all this beauty with the rest of the world tonight.”
“We don’t have to go out,” I told him, leaning back against the wall of the elevator. “I would have been all too happy to stay in and eat takeout again.”
“I may not like other dickheads looking at my girl, but I’m not going to keep you locked up in your room every night. That’s Ryan’s way of thinking, not mine. If he had his way, my sister would stay locked behind the compound’s walls for the rest of her life. Not that Nova would let that happen.” He captured my hand and entwined our fingers. “You deserve a night out, baby. Let the bastards look all they want. I know that, at the end of the night, I’m the one you’re letting take you home.”
I gazed down at his hand holding mine. In comparison, his was twice the size of my own. Long, thick fingers wrapped around slender ones. His hold was firm, yet gentle—the same way he always held me. His touch had a possessiveness to it, but there was also the tender way he touched me. The combination was enough to make me want to curl up in his arms and allow him to erase the trauma of my past—the memories that tried to haunt me day and night.
Pulling my hand free from his made him growl in displeasure, until I grasped hold of his tie and tugged his head down so our faces were so close I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. His eyes lit up with need in a nanosecond, his nose flaring with a want my body was starting to match despite the damage Manuel had inflicted on my psyche.
“Lis…?” Garret breathed, but that was as far as he got before I closed the distance between our lips and pressed my mouth to his.
Garret
I’d had so many plans for the night. First, I would take Lis to dinner, then we would go to any club she wanted. We would have danced until she pleaded for me to take her home, and then we would have grabbed some food to gorge on while we watched TV in her room until she fell asleep.
But the moment her lips latched on to mine, all those plans went up in a cloud of smoke. Grabbing her ass in both hands, I backed her against the wall and deepened the kiss. I hadn’t had a hit of her addictive taste for three weeks, and somehow I’d survived the withdrawals from the dangerous drug. Having it explode on my tongue, this time without food masking how delicious she tasted, I was gone before she even opened her mouth enough to encourage my tongue to play with hers.
Her body molded to mine perfectly, my hard cock notched at just the right spot to make her moan when I gripped her ass a little harder and tilted her up ever so slightly. She’d already released my tie to thrust her fingers into my hair, her nails raking over my scalp in a way that forced a groan from me. It felt good—she felt so damn good.
The memory of fear in her pretty blue eyes the last time I kissed her, however, came back to haunt me. Reluctantly, I lifted my head, dreading to see that same expression on her lovely face. Yet when our gazes locked, fear was the last thing I saw.
She licked her swollen lips as she sucked in deep breaths. “That was even better than I hoped,” she whispered, touching her mouth, the hint of a smile teasing me.
