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"Always," she says with a wicked little laugh.
I smile, shaking my head. Of course she is. She's a natural born brat. I never thought I'd find that so fucking attractive, but here we are…with my dick rock hard every time she defies me.
"How do you feel, Dilemma?"
"Good." She giggles. "Amazing."
"Yeah? Are your arms sore?"
"Not really."
"Good." I slip my hand between her thighs, cupping her pussy. "How's my pussy?"
"You mean mine," she says with a sniff. "And it's fine. A little sore."
"I fucked it. That makes it mine, Gemma." I part her folds, pressing my thumb to her clit. "I licked it too."
"Bronx," she groans, even as she spreads her legs a little wider.
I chuckle, dropping a kiss to her temple as I move my hand away from her cunt. She needs a break before we go for round two. Besides, this isn't about sex right now. This is about checking in and taking care of her. "You wouldn't know how to behave if your life depended on it, would you?"
"I've spent my whole life behaving. I've been the perfect little angel everyone expected me to be," she says. "I'm tired of playing that role, Bronx. I'm so tired of it."
The regret is heavy in her voice, as if this has weighed heavily on her.
"Then don't play the role anymore, Gemma. No one expects you to be perfect. They just want you to be happy."
"You don't understand," she whispers.
"Explain it to me."
"I'm alive because of my sisters."
"What do you mean?" I ask, freezing.
"Our parents abandoned us when I was a baby. They just walked out one day and never came back. I was still a baby. I couldn't feed myself. I could barely even walk. Had my sisters not been there…" She trails off with a sigh. "I'm alive because theywerethere. They made sure that I had bottles. They changed my diaper. They kept me safe."
This is that wound I sensed last night, the one that pissed me off so fucking badly. Garrett never mentioned that his sisterswere adopted. In his eyes, I don't guess it was relevant. To him, they're his sisters. But I wish I had known this. Not because it changes a damn thing, but because it makes her even more precious. She had the roughest start in life one could have, and she still throws her whole heart and soul into everything. She's not simply incredible. She's fucking extraordinary.
"When we ran out of food, Adalynn went and found help," she whispers. "We ended up separated in foster care for a while before her foster mom found out about us. She threw a fit until they put us all in her care. She and her husband adopted all five of us."
"Garrett's parents," I murmur.
She lifts her head, shock written across her face. "You knew?"
"You thought I didn't?"
"I…" She trails off, chagrined. "We never met."
"I've got a long memory, Gemma. Besides, your sisters have been causing chaos since they moved to town. The whole town knew you were a Marsh the second you arrived."
"Oh. I guess I didn't think about that," she mumbles, making me smile.
"So your sisters saved your life and you were adopted, now you think you have to be perfect to pay them back. Does that sum up what you're telling me?"
"No. They worry about me all the time," she says. "If I don't answer my phone, they call my best friend. Growing up, if someone was mean to me, they had to deal with all four of my sisters and Garrett. If someone tried to leave me out, my sisters raised hell, and then told Garrett. I love them so much, but they're so overprotective. When I was younger, I went along with it because I didn't want to upset anyone. I thought if I just behaved and did everything exactly right, they wouldn't worry anymore. I thought eventually they could stop worrying and would relax. But that never happened."
"You lost part of yourself."
