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Elle cried, “In the bottom of the boat where he keeps us.”
Sweets put an arm around her shoulders. “You look cold.”
Huddling to Sweets’ side, Elle shivered. “Always so cold down here.” She rested her head on Sweets’ shoulder. “So cold.”
Quite suddenly, Elle’s breathing changed. She had slipped back into a heavy slumber and she didn’t move.
Sweets leaned her head to Elle’s while observing us. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you more information.”
Brass shook his head in amazement. “Woman, you are nothing but heart.”
She held Elle. “Sometimes we wake. Sometimes we stay stuck in the night terror for a while longer.” She looked at me with such compassion. “Just always stay calm.”
Brass sounded full of regret. “I used to panic, always thinking I was failing her.”
Well, shit. I’m not alone.
Chapter seventeen
Holding Heartbreaks
Lynx
When Elle woke later that night to give me a painkiller, she seemed completely unaware that she had been up crying only hours earlier. When noticing me watching her walk around the end of the bed, she smirked. “You’ve learned a lot from your dad. You watch me like a hawk.”
My heart was still recovering from what I had seen her go through—what I imagined her life had been like. Watching her now was a necessity for my sanity. “That a bad thing?”
Her gorgeous eyes fluttered. “Not with you.”
I blew out a breath of relieved tension. “Good, ‘cause I can’t stop.”
The room was dark, but the bathroom to my left had the light on in case she woke with another night terror.
Now at my side of the bed, she stared down at me. “May I run my fingers through your hair?”
My throat tightened; it was such a small request, yet carried such affection. Heat bloomed between us. “Any time you want.”
Long, delicate fingers softly grazed through my hair. “I could stare at you for hours, Duke.”
Damn, she could stir my body to life in seconds flat. Mouth parted as I struggled to breathe, no longer due to fear, I said, “When we get home, and I have club shit to do, how am I ever going to leave your side?”
A beautiful smile appeared. “If we make it there, I guess we will just have to find out.”
W-What? “Make it there?”
Sadness ruining her smile, she released my hair to grab the bottle of pills. “I wish you and your pops would heed my warnings. Lorenzo is a monster. And—” she grabbed a bottle of water but then stared at it.
I wondered if she was thinking about being so thirsty in the past.
Her eyes drifted to the wall behind me, and her voice deepened, “He’s coming.”
Sitting up, feeling a little vulnerable lying there, I winced through pain and gritted my teeth. “I can handle him.”
Adoringly, and a bit pitifully, she gazed at me. “He has a small army of men. You have…” She shook her head.
Leaning against the headboard, I smirked. I was a leader of an army myself. “You’re clueless as to who you’re speaking to, Girly-Girl.”
She jerked back. “Damn, apparently, I am.” She put the pills and water back on the nightstand, then went into the bathroom.
