Disengaged: A Dangerously Forbidden Love Affair (18 page)

I didn’t know what game Channing was playing now, but I knew he never showed his cards to the boss until he had a full house. I wasn’t going to help him stack the deck with some freeze frame of my girl and me looking at each other soul-to-soul and shit as I pretended to rape her.

I dropped her legs; boneless, she fell to the floor. I let out a growl then gripped her arm and dragged her deeper into the bath away from the camera’s reach. As soon as I knew no eyes were on us, my hands started to tremble. I wanted to ask a million questions, but my thoughts were scrambled, and my heart was breaking.

I reached to turn the water on. It was cold at first, always was, I let it all fall on my back hoping it would calm me down a bit. She sat with her knees up, drawn in a ball at my feet. When I looked down, I saw pools of blood circling her, the blood of my latest victim in the water.

Something snapped in me. I pulled her up too fast and too hard, hard enough for her to scream. I wanted to applaud her for keeping up the show when I heard the bastards outside my room laugh, but one look in her frantic eyes told me she was doing anything but acting.

She dropped her stare and stood there, almost too obediently. Her actions only added to my already sick thoughts about where she had been. I pooled shampoo in my hands then as tenderly as I could, I moved them across her body. I only wanted to wash away what I’d done to her, the come on her back and stomach, but my hands were shaking so badly, you would’ve thought I was holding together a mortal wound.

I was somewhere deep in my dark thoughts, and guarding my touch, making sure I never went near her thighs or her chest when I felt her tiny hands land on mine. We both stilled. Not a breath left us.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a whisper, barely moving her lips.

Was I okay? That was her question. I’d scarred her for life, and put her in mortal danger. Right then, she had no idea who was watching and who wasn’t, and what she risked was asking if I was okay. Where in the hell did this girl come from? Who thinks like that? Who could care that much about someone else? Someone like me?

I glanced back at the door, then pushed my shorts down and threw them to the line I was pretty positive the cameras could see then met her stare, a silent warning that was our boundary, that we only had two and a half feet of privacy. Still shaking I reached for the mask on her face. It was the only thing about her that was offering me any kind of calm; a barrier between us that gave me time to accept my Ember was behind it.

When I lifted it and saw her cheeks stained in black from all the tears she cried, my eyes welled and through gritted teeth, in a tone that was a degree quieter than the one she used I asked what I didn’t want to know, “What happened?”

NINETEEN

Slayton

Two words, after everything that had happened tonight, those two words were what made her break. I saw it in her eyes first, how they came into focus. Then it was her lips, the way they parted just slightly. Her breath hitched next, and as it did I knew even though she was boldly staring at me, she was gone somewhere inside of a nightmare I knew nothing about.

I caught her just as all the tension in her body faded and tears—real, silent, full of unthinkable grief tears—came from her breathtaking eyes. I clutched her to my chest, rushed my hands over the back of her head as I fiercely stared into nothing vowing that whoever had done this to her, put a hand on her, that I’d kill them with my bare hands.

I would have let her cry forever, but I knew our time was short, too fucking short, before someone would come to tell us to get back in the line of sight. I put my hands on each side of her face and leaned it back into the stream of warm water, rivulets of black washed down her, staining her ivory skin. She gasped a breath then started to down the water like she hadn’t drunk in forever.

Growing impatient, I could barely hold in my rage, the revenge I was plotting, I pulled her up again and searched her eyes. The tears would not stop. “Tell me,” I demanded.

She fought with the words three times over before she whispered, “He’s dead.”

I hated myself for the relief I felt, for knowing her father could never hurt her again, or bring hell to her doorstep. Not because my relief was unwarranted, but because of the pain I saw in her eyes. It was agony I wanted to take away from her—that I wanted to carry.

“How?” my voice was hoarse and cold as millions of scenarios rushed through my head. Was she there? Did Malcolm come after her when I started to waver in the ring? What. The. Fuck.

“The bar, at the corner of second. I—I followed him there—” she had to stop for words and I had to tell myself to stop pressing my fingers into her head as I did my best to cradle her angelic face, comforting her. I knew that fucking bar. Too well. If her father had gone there, he was betting again and a damn fool. The owner told me point blank that the next time he laid eyes on Bloom he was killing him. By taking bets in his bar, Bloom had put the owner on Malcolm’s shit list. The last place any fucker wanted to be.

“What else,” I said shortly. The way she shook told me I didn’t want to know, that she didn’t want to remember. I knew why. I knew who hunted there. Zee.

I pulled her to my chest, and we both cried. Her tears were loud, gasping for air, mine were nothing more than a watery veil of fury. We were there too long, dangerously too long, but I couldn’t tell her to stop grieving, that she had to stop giving a fuck what happened to her for five seconds.

She must have felt me getting tenser every few seconds, her breaths were still shuddering, her eyes were so small from wailing, but she looked up at me.

I ticked my head to where my shorts were on the floor. Against her ear, I said, “Crawl there, I’m going to pull you back—scream and fight.”

More tears came from her when she understood we had not found a pocket of relief, a home base—we were still in the thick of it and any second we could be ripped apart.

She did as I said, and God help me when I pulled her back, and she wailed and hit me I wanted her to hit me harder, to use me as a place to land all her aggression. I wanted her to let out the anger I wasn’t sure she’d faced yet, but knew she would sooner or later.

When I had her far past the barrier and in the corner she hooked her arms around my shoulders and gripped me for dear life, and I held her just as tightly. I didn’t want to say a word. I never did around her. I liked how we didn’t need to speak to get each other, and knowing that I was actually connected to another soul on this planet. But I had to ask questions. I had to know how deep we were in this mess. If it was worse than I thought, if that were even possible.

I leaned back. “When?”

She closed her eyes, then looked up at me. “Maybe a week...”

Her not knowing for sure was setting off every alarm I had. “Did you see them take him down?”

She shook her head. “I—I was trying to get in the room...the door opened.”

I tensed before I asked my next question; something she felt and cowered from, but I held her tighter. “Then?”

She looked down. “Shock made them think I’d been drugged.”

It was hard to know what to feel right then. The sick fuck I was was not only happy her father was dead, but even happier the shock had saved her fucking life. They would have raped her, then killed her. No debate about it. But what did living earn her so far? Was living worth it if it she was in hell?

“Did—did they recognize you?” I had paraded this girl all over this fucking city. Then, it was to protect her. Now, like a million times before, I was regretting my previous choices with her.

She swayed her head. “They just wanted to sell me for a high price.”

I slammed my fist into the wall beside us; she flinched but a beat later she was cursing me across a whisper as she held my hands under the water, gently moving her delicate fingertips across the aching flesh.

“Did,” I started, and found it hard to continue, “did they hurt you?” There was no keeping the emotion out of my tone. No slaughtering the thoughts in my head—justifiable ones that reflected everything I’d seen in my life.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t raped.”

I deflated right then and there. It felt like the world itself had lifted from my shoulders. I had reason to hope that maybe someone, somewhere, was watching out for my girl.

My lips landed on hers.

Kissing this girl had been a drug for me the entire time she was at my side. A hit I needed often. She may have thought I only kissed her because someone was watching, and more than half the time they were, but the truth is, the feel of her lips was my air.

Her lips were soft as clouds, but daring as a raging storm. It was never an act with us. It was a connection. It was me reading her as well as I thought she was reading me. I knew if she was scared, calm, excited, mad...I could sense it all with her lips.

The kiss she gave me now was as hungry as mine, and like millions of times before I had to take a breath because there was something in her touch that shot a zing through my entire body. It made my chest ache and everything inside of me begged to get as close to her as I could, I wanted to be consumed by the purity I felt between us, this undefined rush that gave reason to the insanity of my life.

As our tongues collided and my body relaxed against hers, I let myself believe that I’d figure this out. I’d get us safe, and that even though we’d both been through some shit—this kiss right here made it worth it. But then, like each time before, my touch read her emotions. The emotion I felt that made me sick with wrath: shame. It was fused with the sense of withdrawing; her wanting to hide something from me that she thought was unforgivable.

I didn’t want to, but I pulled away, leaned my forehead to hers and slowly caressed her cheek with my thumb. “Tell me...”

The hot tears I felt meeting my thumbs on her face, as my eyes clenched tightly closed were not helping.

“Ch—Channing.”

Like a predator locked in on a scent, my stare met hers. She dropped those blue eyes from me, but I turned her chin up, made her look at me.

“I think he bought me,” she managed to say. My gaze rushed hers looking for what she wasn’t saying. I almost assumed she was a gift from Zee, part of a peace offering he’d be throwing at Malcolm for years to come. But now...her saying she was bought changed her entire path to me.

I bowed my head. I couldn’t look at her right then. I was furious. Not at her. Well, maybe I was. Maybe I was mad she didn’t reach for me in that church—who knows. Maybe if I hadn’t stayed and watched her, all that time could have been used to get us both out. But that anger had a lot of other bullshit standing before it in line. I was pissed the guy had a face. Pissed that she more than likely saw Channing and thought he was her way out.

“Did he hurt you?” I gritted out.

She was crying again, so it took her a second to answer me. “I was blazed...but I think he made it as respectable as it could be considering.”

I went to hit that wall again, but she caught my arm, I barely stopped myself from hitting it and hurting her in the same swing. Instead, the powerful blow melted under her touch and I scooped her up in my arms and held her long enough for me to take a breath, then another.

“I don’t think Malcolm knows who I am yet,” she said against my neck. “But I’m scared.”

“Don’t you fucking worry about Channing,” my murderous tone didn’t escape her attention. She hesitated before she said her next words. “Sugar saw me,” she swayed her head. “Those girls hate me. They don’t get why I’m here. Why I got in the box. She told the guard she needed to talk to Malcolm right when she saw me.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. How was I going to tell this girl how fucked we were? What was coming for us? I couldn’t. When you are this broken the only thing left to do is break a little more, destroy who you are. Then pray that you are reborn far from the demons that have their fucking claws in you.

I swallowed stiffly then reached for her face once more. I didn’t want my hands to shake, but they did. “Tomorrow. After the second fight...run to me.”

Her eyes questioned me. I wish I had fucking answers. “Run to me, don’t stop. No matter what.”

She opened her mouth, but before a single question I could not answer came out, I crashed my lips onto hers. It was a gallows kiss, the kind where you taste everything, feel everything. When you understand this is it, there is no going back. Not anymore.

Pulling away from her was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but I had no choice. We were out of time again. With a tick of my head, she walked away from me. At first, I thought she was only playing her part, that her stagger and face still stained black was only backing up what we needed those watching to assume. But I was sure her nerves, and her brilliant mind, were ripping her up inside as she tried to fathom what I said...our only escape out of here.

When I finally came out, she’d put her dress back on, inside out, and was sitting on the edge of the bed with her head down shivering. I moved to the bed and nodded for her to crawl further in, hating that she was lying on my blood stained sheets in this shithole of mine.

My murderous expression never left my face as I killed the lamp and lay next to her. Under the sheet, where I was sure no one could see the intimate gesture, I placed my hand between her thighs, not far from her knee, then slowly moved my thumb across her flesh until I felt her go lax at my side and drift into sleep.

For hours I stared into nothing, counting her breaths, listening for her heartbeat, pretending that we were anywhere but there...and talking to the angels she told me walked with her. The ones in God’s army that her grandmother swore were always at Ember’s side.

Sleep did come for me; I was sure it had when I found Channing standing over me but I’d never heard the fuck come in. He wasn’t alone, two guards were with him, and so was the head whore. My instinct was to look protectively to my side and throw my body in front of Ember’s, but that was the last thing I should’ve done.

Besides, I could feel her. I was always aware of her. She was awake in the far corner of the bed with her knees drawn upward. I wasn’t so sure how long she’d been like that, only that she looked as broken as she needed to right then.

“Big day,” Channing said blankly to me.

I hit the guard that tried to pull me up. It was my typical reaction to those fucks, which is why both Channing and the other guard drew on me. Both the girls flinched, Ember yelped. I was slow to stand, rebellious as ever.

Channing nodded to the head whore and on command she reached for Ember and pulled her to go with her. I only had a split second to look Ember in the eye. When I did, I begged with all I was that she’d listen to me this time, that no matter what, she’d choose me, run to me...trust me.