Total pages in book: 13
Estimated words: 11908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 60(@200wpm)___ 48(@250wpm)___ 40(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 11908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 60(@200wpm)___ 48(@250wpm)___ 40(@300wpm)
“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to,” Grit quietly assured me. “I just thought I’d offer so you’re not bottling it all up inside.”
I shook my head. “I want to,” I said quietly. “I just… don’t know how to begin.”
“Just start,” he said. “There’s no eloquent way to start telling me what you endured, sunshine.” God, I loved that nickname, even if I didn’t feel much like his sunshine right then. “You just talk about it. State the facts.”
I nodded and tucked my hands beneath my thighs. Staring straight ahead at the blank, black TV screen, I said, “I tried to get somewhere safe like you told me. My bathroom window faces the backyard, so I tried climbing out of it, but they broke in before I could get out. Dragged me down by my hair and pulled me into the living room by my wrists because I wouldn’t stop fighting them.” My voice was monotonous as I relayed what I’d endured, something akin to emptiness inside me as I spoke. “One bound my hands while the other pried my mouth open and forced me to suck his cock. Then, the other one went searching for something. I don’t know what.”
“Probably anything to tie you to us,” Grit said, and when his voice came out normal and unaffected, I found I could breathe a little easier. I didn’t need him to rage. I didn’t need him to coddle me. I just needed him to continue acting like I was normal. That I wasn’t somehow changed by what’d happened to me.
“I… thank you,” I finally murmured, looking at him now. He arched a questioning brow at me. “For not treating me differently just because I was assaulted.”
His lips quirked. “You’re not a different person because of it, sunshine. You might be down right now, but you’ll make a comeback and still be my ray of sunshine.”
“Yours?” I croaked, my heart beating a little faster. I hoped like hell I wasn’t reading too much into what he’d said.
He sighed. “I didn’t want to give in to what I feel for you, Nicole,” he confessed, and my heart flipped over in my chest. “Because I knew something like this would happen to you if I did. But it happened regardless, all because we held two fucking conversations.” Venom laced his last sentence, and he drew in a deep breath, forcing a calm over himself once more that I knew he didn’t truly feel. “But yeah, sunshine. If you’ll allow it, I want you to be mine. I’ll protect you until my last, dying breath, and I won’t ever allow something like this to ever happen to you again,” he swore.
Fuck, my heart couldn’t take something like this. Grit was hot as hell in that grunge, outlaw, fuck-the-world way that I found myself oddly attracted to. But beneath all that was a strength I wanted to cling to. He made me feel safe, and when those bikers had ridden into my yard, my first thought hadn’t been to call the police.
It’d been to call him, even though we’d barely spoken before. Because I knew he’d be there faster than the cops ever could be.
“I don’t think I can ever get on my knees or give a blowjob ever again,” I blurted. Shame swept over me, and I groaned, covering my face with my hands. Why the fuck had I blurted that? We weren’t even talking about sex!
Grit’s surprised bark of laughter met my ears, and a moment later, the bed dipped beside me. His bulky arm came around me, and he tugged me to lean against his side before dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “Even if you decide you can’t ever have sex again, Nicole, that won’t change anything,” he promised. “My hand works just fine, as does the mental image of you.”
I groaned. “You’re making this worse.”
His laugh was deep and husky and warmed me from the inside out. “I think you need more sleep, sunshine.”
I sank into him, my fingers curling into his worn, soft t-shirt. “Stay with me?” I quietly asked.
He nodded and leaned back against the headboard, pulling me with him. “Yeah, sunshine. I’ll stay.”
8
Grit
Days led into weeks with no signs of the Lockheart MC making any moves of retaliation. In fact, they’d taken to hunkering down. Jennifer, Carver’s old lady, who was also the dead Lockheart MC’s president’s daughter, got shit-faced drunk when Carver provided proof to her that I’d taken her father out. She’d been absolutely giddy with relief that he was no longer a problem for her.
Nicole was slowly healing, and I’d been taking her to therapy sessions twice a week for the past two weeks. Blink usually rode with us so we weren’t alone. We didn’t want to take chances even though things were still quiet. It was when we let our guards down that shit could easily hit the fan.