AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know,” he soothes in a jagged voice as he strokes my hair. “I promise that will never happen to you again.”
We stay like that for a moment, his arms around me, keeping my trembling frame tucked against his chest. His clothes are soaked, the t-shirt sticking to his body while I stand there naked, half-wishing for the water to be scalding enough to burn the dirty layer of my skin off.
Straightening my spine, I reach for the bar of soap on the ledge. It smells spicy with a hint of the ocean we both confessed to missing, like a forest meeting the shoreline. It’s Fox. I press it to my skin and start lathering. In a few movements I find myself scrubbing rough enough to chafe. I don’t realize I’m panting until he gently pries the soap from my death grip.
“Let me.”
Turning me around, he winds one arm around my middle and pulls me into his chest. I hold onto his arm to keep myself standing as he helps wash me. He doesn’t let me go, supporting my weight when I sag against him, keeping his face pressed to the side of mine. I let my eyes close and focus on him.
The water shuts off and I crack my eyes open. He strips out of his wet clothes, the drenched material slapping to the floor. Stepping out, he offers a hand.
Fox dries me off and sits me down on the edge of the bed. The shower helped to make me feel more like myself. After he pulls on a pair of briefs, he rummages beneath the platform he built for the mattress out of found materials and kneels in front of me.
“Let me see your wrists.” His voice is low, gentle, but infused with the power of his command. I offer my hands to him. “This will help.”
Producing a tube of lotion, he squirts some onto his fingers and rubs it into my wrists with slow circles. My lashes flutter and a soft sigh leaves me. When he finishes with my wrists, he moves on, applying lotion to the irritated red patches of my thighs where the rope keeping me in the chair scraped me raw.
He glances up at the curious noise I make. “What?”
“I didn’t think someone all rough and tough like you would bother with skincare,” I tease.
Color tinges his cheeks and the corner of his mouth curls wryly. He scrapes his thumb nail over his lip and leers at me through his dark lashes. “It’s not for my face.” His brows lift and he traps the tip of his tongue between his teeth. “I didn’t touch other girls, but a man has needs, Maise.”
It takes a minute for his meaning to register to my sluggish mind. “Oh. Ohh, okay. I feel you.” Smirking, I lean into him. “You and Righty? Same.”
A husky laugh rumbles in his throat and he moves to my other thigh, taking his time to rub the lotion into my inflamed skin. As he cares for me, an intense wave of drowsiness has me swaying.
“Lay down, baby.” He brushes damp tendrils of hair from my face and nudges me onto the bed. “I’ve got you.”
I shift back, then freeze. “You won’t leave?”
“No. I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”
He follows me, opening his arms once he’s settled. I burrow into them and breathe him in, nose tucked against the crook of his neck. He rubs my back in comforting circles.
“Are you cold?”
I shake my head. “Just hold me.”
His arms cinch snugly around me. In his embrace, I’m safe, I’m loved, I’m protected.
“Thank you,” I whisper, letting sleep claim me.
As I doze, I’m vaguely aware of him murmuring to me. I don’t know what he says, but he never once leaves my side. He’s there for me.
It’s dark when I feel lucid again. I don’t know if it was a lasting reaction to the sedative, the emotional overload, or a combination of it all, but when I wake up it’s like I’m coming out of an intense nightmare. My limbs are heavy and the aches in my body are more prominent. I wish I could just fucking forget it all. Lock it in a damn vault in my mind and never face it again. I release a groan and roll over to find Fox’s gaze on me in the dim shadows.
“You’re awake,” he says.
My cheek drags over his tattooed bicep beneath my head when I nod. He tucks my hair behind my ear, tracing the pads of his fingers down the side of my jaw.
“What happens now?” I ask.
He draws in a slow breath. “I know a guy not too far from here who has an endless supply of explosives. Well, Colt does. Part of his network. It’s a day’s drive away.”
Phantom fingers squeeze my breasts too hard and air hitches in my throat. I picture fire and ash, imagine the man who took me screaming in agony while I watch his skin melt off his bones. For a second, I want it. It scares me I could feel so violently toward someone, but it doesn’t make this go away.
“No. That makes us no better than them.”
