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Her eyes softened, but she was quiet for so long, I didn’t know what to expect.
“And what if I told you that isn’t what I wanted?” she asked. “Would you keep me here anyway?”
I swallowed down the bitterness of her question and shrugged. “Yeah, I probably fucking would.”
Birdie laughed, and her fingers traced over the calluses on my hand as she considered my admission. In the morning light, her eyes glittered like a turquoise sea, and I could have stayed right there, watching the sunlight dance across her skin all day.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer, and she didn’t expect me to. Her fingers gradually moved below the sheet to the scarred letters on my chest. Though it felt strange to let her touch me there, it also felt like I needed it, so I didn’t stop her.
“Was I your first kiss?” she asked.
I hadn’t expected her observation, and I felt the redness creeping back up my throat. But as uncomfortable as it made me, I wouldn’t lie to her. “Yes, Birdie. You’re my first kiss. And unless you count a hand job from a hooker when I got out of prison, you’re the only woman I’ve ever had sex with.”
“Why?” She stared into my eyes, searching for an explanation.
“I was young when I went to prison. And when I got out, I didn’t really know how to deal with women. I’d lived in a metal cage full of savages for thirteen years, and I guess I just never really learned. I didn’t have much of an inclination either, but after a while, Lucian thought it might be beneficial to break the ice and dip my toe in the water. He hired a hooker, and she met me in a hotel room with a bag full of sex toys. She told me she’d do anything I wanted, but I was still learning to find my voice. She asked me if I liked the freaky shit, said she thought I looked like one of those guys when she saw the scars on my chest. She told me she could give me some pain if that’s what I wanted, and that was what I knew, so I said yes.”
“So she hurt you,” Birdie murmured. “And then you asked Kylie to hurt you too.”
I didn’t know how she’d figured out the arrangement with Kylie, but regardless, I didn’t care. I wanted her to know. There was no more room for secrets between us.
“What about me, Ace?” she asked. “How do I fit into all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“The pain.” Her brows pinched together. “You know I could never do that to you, right? I won’t ever do that to you.”
“I know,” I admitted. “That isn’t what I need from you, Birdie. It’s not something I even want anymore. That need died in me the first time I saw you.”
“How?” she pressed. “How can something like that just go away?”
“I was empty before.” I closed my eyes and breathed her in. “And now, I’m not.”
“You’ve been stalking me,” she pointed out. “Collecting information about my life. Watching me. You know all these things about me—”
“Not everything,” I corrected. “There are still things I want to hear from you.”
She shivered, pulling the sheet around herself as she sat up. “Like what?”
“Who did this to you, Birdie?” My jaw flexed. “Tell me.”
“Why, so you can take care of it for me?” She smirked.
“Yes, so I can fucking take care of it,” I deadpanned. “Your days of taking on the whole world by yourself are over. I’m here now, and I won’t allow this to blow over. Don’t think for one second it will go away.”
“I’m not pretending it didn’t happen.” She glared. “I honestly don’t know who it was. He just said he had a message for me, and then he attacked me. I didn’t get a clear shot of his face since he was too busy bashing mine.”
I released an unsteady breath as rage simmered below the surface of my vibrating skin. I wanted to kill this motherfucker. I wanted to stomp his face beneath my boot until the streets of Vegas ran red with his blood. Nobody fucked with Birdie. Nobody.
“You must have some idea,” I said. “Was there anything that happened before this? Any indication someone was after you?”
Birdie bit her lip, a habit she reverted to when she was hiding something. She still had secrets from me, and I didn’t know what they were. But I would find out, and I would get the motherfucker who touched her. Until then, she would just need to learn how to trust me.
I leaned into her and kissed her forehead. “We’ll talk about it another time. Right now, you just need to rest.”
THREE DAYS HAD COME AND gone, and Huck was still right by my side. He’d fed me, showered me, and even gone as far as dragging the television into the bedroom for us to watch. But honestly, I was at my happiest when he just let me curl up next to him while he read to me.
