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“I haven’t always been a good person,” she confessed. “I did some bad things to my brothers. When they were mean, I’d retaliate. I cut a piece of Benny’s ear off.”
“You really did that?”
“It was after he’d cut my hair. I loved my hair. It was so long and shiny. He chopped this huge hunk off. So I decided to do the same to him. Only I sort of slipped and cut off a bit of his ear instead. Not a huge piece, but yeah . . . so you see, I’m not a good person. And I need to make amends.”
Fuck.
He wanted to laugh. But he couldn’t. Because there was so much about what she’d just said that he needed to clear up.
“Okay, first things first. Good.”
“Good. What’s good?”
“I’m glad you cut off a piece of his ear. He sounds like a complete asshole. You should have aimed for his dick instead.”
“Maxim!”
“What?”
“That would mean I’d have to touch his dick.” She pulled a face.
“True, you wouldn’t want to do that.” But if he ever met the asshole, he’d make sure there was no chance of him ever fathering kids. He didn’t deserve them.
“As for the rest of that codswallop that you just recited, that doesn’t make you a bad person. And you have nothing to atone for. You certainly don’t need to atone by letting people take advantage of you.”
“I just want to be a better person.”
“Baby, you’re a good person. Did you ever hurt someone? Did you ever shake someone down for money or beat them up when they didn’t have it?”
“No,” she whispered. “But once, I slashed my dad’s tires and let him think that one of my brothers did it.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I heard him talking about how he was going to have to get forceful with Mrs. Tiles. She was this lovely older woman who owned the butchery in our neighborhood with her husband. But he’d just died and she couldn’t pay the protection fee. And my dad . . . he was going to hurt her. So I slashed his tires and snuck out to warn her oldest son. I knew him from school.”
“And you think that makes you a terrible person?” he asked incredulously.
“No, what makes me a terrible person is that I slashed them with my brother Hugh’s knife, then left it lying by the car for my father to see.”
“There a reason why you did that?”
“Yeah, Hugh had locked me outside the house the night before when Dad wasn’t there. It was after ten and freezing cold, and I only had a nightgown on. I had to go and hide in the woodshed. It was small and dark and scary.”
“Motherfucking bastard,” he spat out. “Is that why you’re scared of small, dark spaces? Like the elevator?”
“I wish I could say yes. Unfortunately, I have more experience with smaller, darker spaces than that woodshed. And I could leave the woodshed anytime I wanted so it wasn’t so bad.”
“What does that mean?” he pressed. “What small, dark place couldn’t you leave?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t want to talk about it.”
Fuck.
This girl.
His girl. There were so many layers to her. It was like he peeled one away and there were a thousand more underneath.
You’ll never be bored.
That was the truth. Frustrated. Happy. Horny. Tormented.
He’d often be those, he was sure.
Even after being beaten and stabbed, he couldn’t stop his dick from getting hard around her. And that was a pain in the ass, seeing as he couldn’t take care of it. He’d gotten up twice to pee, but it wasn’t like he had the strength to rub one off. Even if he could have done that, with her waiting on the other side of the door, grumbling at him for getting up when she thought he should use a bed-pan, it would’ve been impossible.
Like fuck he was pissing in a pot and letting her empty it.
Not until he was on his deathbed.
Likely, not even then.
“Aston. Tell me. What small, dark place?”
Frustration filled him when the door opened and his two brothers walked in. He tried to hide that frustration when Gracen followed them.
She was practically glowing with happiness. Maxim liked seeing that. He’d like it even more if his woman smiled like that every morning.
She would once all of this had settled down. He’d wake her every morning with his mouth, his fingers, or his dick.
Yep. They’d both walk around with smiles on their faces like Gracen did.
“Morning!” she said cheerfully. Then her smile started drooping as she looked at them both. “What’s wrong? Maxim? Are you in pain? Aston? Are you all right? You look like you didn’t get any sleep at all again last night.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Thank you.” Aston’s voice was stilted.
He leaned into her. “Gracen will never take advantage of you. Any friendship she offers will be genuine.” He whispered it to her so the others couldn’t hear.
