Page 51 of Ready For His Rule

Okay. More progress. He wasn’t sure he liked it better than the blinking, but he’d take it.

“No?”

“No.” She pushed it out louder. Used the hand she’d placed on his knee to shove at him. “Not going to listen. Not to you.” Her face twisted again. Harder than before. “Not to you.”

He pushed back to his haunches. Commanded a breath in then out. Yeah, fuck it, this was progress too. Progress like gaining ground by stomping on a wasp’s nest, but yeah, progress. She was talking to him. Now if he could get her talking with him…

“Okay. Then maybe I can go get someone you will listen to.” He visualized where he’d last seen Gemini Vann and Veronica Gallo. In the den, relaxing with the kids and their stereophonic video games—though something had clearly, finally triggered her to cave like this from yesterday’s shock. The delayed emotions didn’t surprise him, though what she’d done about them did.

“No.”

She gritted the retort this time, intensifying his concern to the point that he reached out again. But the second his hand formed over her shoulder, she flinched and seethed.

“No! There’s no one you can ‘go get’, dammit.”

He pulled back, watching his hand curl on itself in midair. He thought of all the damage that fist had done, to so many shitheads and losers over the years, but was now a symbol of utter helplessness—inches from a person he was aching to help. Fate was getting in all its best taunts today. His spirit hadn’t agonized this much even when the news about Nichols had come out.

And the pain in this stall is about you…how?

Easy answer. It wasn’t.

But no way in hell was he leaving her in here, all but drowning herself in several senses of the word. If she ordered him all the way out of the shower, then he’d abide—and simply sit on the tile outside. One puddle for another; no difference to him physically—but he would stay here for her, whether she asked for it or not. Even if it fucking killed him.

For now, he chose to simply settle back on his haunches. Nearly as an afterthought, reached and cranked the spray off. In the eerie silence after, Tracy joined her quiet sniffs to the heavy drops of the draining water. John re-balled both his hands, hating even the inches between them. To not even touch her, let alone resist the baser need to clutch her close…

Fuck.

Waterboarding had nothing on this shit.

And the worst part hadn’t even sunk in.

She’s just following your lead, asshole.

Thatwas the worst part.

In protecting her from his secret side, he’d been locked out of her secrets too. In shielding her from his darkness, she’d made sure he stayed right there—in the dark. Away from the ability to even give her some light…

Moron. You. Same sentence, Keoni John Franzen.

Finally, she snuffled with more determination. Jerked up her head a little, long enough to slide him a furtive side-eye, but nothing more. She pulled her hand all the way back in, tucking it beneath her chin as she settled her head against the wall again.

“I want to talk to Craig.”

A brutal exhalation left him. His throat tightened. His chest compressed. Hell, nothing was comfortable. Nor was it meant to be.

“I know you do,” he murmured.

“I’m…scared.”

Screw uncomfortable. Everything was agony—especially when she wouldn’t even let him do anything about it. No. When he’d pushed her away out in the bedroom, letting her walk away with the impression that he wouldn’t do anything.

“I know you are.”

At least he had words. Paltry proxies, but they’d have to suffice somehow.

“I have no idea what to do.”

“But you don’t have to figure it out alone, ku’uipo.”

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