Escaped Artist (Untamed #3) (10 page)

Reagan…beautiful, beautiful Reagan.

Memories of that night flittered into my mind. The lights going off in the cellar, sending me tumbling into darkness. The smell of the sweat on his skin mixing with the alcohol on his breath. The scent overwhelmed me in the damp, dark basement when Jack had come up behind me and whispered in my ear.

Shh, shhhh. I’m here. No need to cry. I’m going to give you what you’ve been asking for all night.

I heard the fucking grin on his face even as my skin crawled and my heart froze at the threat in his voice. Then his iron grip was suddenly around my arms, his erection already pressing into my back.

I’ve seen you watching me, Reagan. At school and tonight. I know you want me. I know you want this.

And then…

“How old were you?” Dare’s voice was tight, tortured.

I looked down at my hands, unable to stand the agony etched on his face. “Fifteen. He was a senior.”

Dare groaned as if he were in pain, and shot up out of his chair, sending it flying backward. I could feel the anger radiating out of him as he stormed over to the window, and I half expected him to smash the glass panes. Instead he yelled “FUUUUUUCK!” at the top of his lungs, his chest heaving.

Then he turned and, before I knew it, was across the room, kneeling at my feet, his hands clutching mine, his eyes misty and brimming with so many raw emotions I couldn’t even identify them all.

“I would kill him if I could,” he said. “Hell, I
will
kill the bastard if I ever get the chance. I’m so sorry, Ree. For everything that happened. For everything he did. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Tears rolled down my face and I reached forward to touch his cheek. He leaned into my hand and kissed my palm, his expression so dark and devastated I could physically feel his agony.

“Why are
you
sorry?”

“Because you didn’t deserve it,” he said. “You didn’t deserve what that piece of shit did.”

I lost it at those words, letting the tears spill out of me. Dare wrapped his arms around my waist and I hugged his head to my chest, sobbing out my relief at his acceptance along with all the years of hurt I’d been holding in.

When I’d told my parents about the attack, their first reaction had been disbelief, telling me I was being overly dramatic and making things up, fabricating a lie much worse than what had actually happened. They’d said I couldn’t go around making up stories about the future governor’s son just for attention.

But then when the evidence of what he’d done grew to be undeniable…they’d said it was my own fault. My skirt had been too short, my shirt too tight. I’d flirted with him too openly, smiled too much, given him the wrong idea. I’d let him do it, I obviously hadn’t said
no
and afterwards I must have panicked and regretted it.

I was a slut. A whore. A disappointment to my family. A stain on the McKinley name.

My shame was complete.

And in a single sentence, Dare had blown that all away.

I never imagined I would have someone in my life who would love me no matter what. Someone who would see the good in me even when I couldn’t. Someone who would choose to believe me even when the truth was a horror.

I’d never known what I was missing until Dare.

twelve

I
stared out of the small window in Ree’s room, feeling like I was suffocating. I had never harbored this much hatred toward someone in my life.

Pure, raw hatred.

Any guy who’d force himself on a woman wasn’t a real man. He wasn’t even a fucking human being.

Rage built up like a tight fireball in my chest, spreading into every crevice of my body and mind. I tried my damnedest to rein it in, if only to not wake Ree.

We’d come back to her room, curled up on her bed, and I’d held her until she fell asleep. Then I’d gotten up and worn a path the length of her room.

Fifteen. She’d been a fucking kid. She hadn’t even—

FUCK. If I ever got my hands on that bastard he wouldn’t make it out alive.

Imagining that happening to Ree was killing me. That animal had crushed her spirit, beaten her down, stolen not only her innocence, but also her beautiful smile.

I wanted to murder him. No, TORTURE, then murder him.

And then I’d take care of her parents and make those sadistic assholes pay for their sins. They’d refused to acknowledge her pain, instead choosing to just drug the fuck out of her until she was numb to the world.

My heart felt like it was going to rip its way right out of my chest.

She’d had to carry this pain for seven years. All alone.

Seven
fucking
years.

No wonder she’d needed the escape the pills provided.

And hadn’t I failed her, too? I hadn’t been there three years ago when she’d needed me. I’d been so messed up myself that I’d failed to see the danger signs. She’d been hurting then. Why hadn’t I stuck it out?

My fist connected with the window frame, rattling it. Ree startled, her eyes flew open, and I immediately felt like an ass.

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Are you angry?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

Angry? I was fucking livid. But I stuffed that down because she didn’t need my anger right now. She just needed me. I could never undo what this monster had done. But at least I could be by her side.

I walked over to the bed and sat down, leaning over to gently brush the matted hair from her beautiful face. Blue eyes the color of the ocean searched mine, worry clearly reflected in their depths.

“At you? No. Of course not,” I said, feeling my rage fading with each second I gazed at her.

Was that what love was all about? The ability to have another person’s mere presence pluck you from hell and bring you back to earth with a single glance? I had no clue, but Ree had forced me to face emotions and acknowledge feelings I hadn’t even known existed.

“I’m broken, Dare.” Her eyebrows drew together and her forehead crinkled.

“You’re beautiful, Ree.” I smoothed the worry from her face, tracing my fingers over her cheek and along her jawline, reveling in the sensation of her silky skin under my fingertips. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

She shook her head and I searched the room, trying to think of some way to convince her. My eyes landed on a notebook lying on top of her nightstand.

“Let me show you what I see when I look at you,” I said as I reached for it, also snatching the pencil that was off to its side.

I flipped to a blank page and focused on her face. I knew it better than I knew my own, having committed to memory every line and each curve long ago.

She stared up at me with so much need in her liquid gaze. “What do you see, Dare?”

“Your eyes that notice light even when the world is submerged in darkness,” I said, sketching the arc of her eyelids, the contours of her eyes, the pencil in my hand an extension of my fingers and heart. “Eyes that find beauty in works of art that other people miss. Eyes that always perceive the best in me.”

Her lips parted slightly and she drew in a shuddering breath as my pencil strokes got longer, freer.

“Your thick, golden hair that I love to run my hands through. Hair that always smells like honey and summer—like my Ree.”

Her eyelashes fluttered and her head slowly fell back. I reached over to wrap my fingers around the soft, dark blonde strands that fell on her neck.

“Keep talking,” she said in a whisper. “Please don’t stop.”

My fingers glided over to the velvet of her lips. “This lush, sexy mouth that has called me some of the best things in the world. But also some of the worst.”

Her lips quirked upward under my touch. “Sometimes you
can
be such an ass.” A small laugh licked my fingers. “But you’re MY ass, Dare Wilde.”

She was smiling. Thank god.

“I am yours,” I said. She fucking owned me. Her words had the power to make and break me. Her tongue darted out to taste my thumb, and I groaned. Damn, the things she could do to me. I craved to hear those soft lips moan my name.

Right now.

But I couldn’t push her, so I focused back on the sketch. It didn’t need my attention. Not really, anyway. I could draw Ree with my eyes closed.

I made my way down her neck—both with my look and my touch—pausing at her collarbone. It was more pronounced than usual. She’d lost weight over the past two weeks, weight she couldn’t afford to lose. That alone told me how hard she’d had it.

“This is one of my favorite spots.” I traced the protruding bones with my left index finger as the pencil in my other hand made a perfect replica on the paper in front of me. “A sweet spot I love to kiss and lick and bite.” My voice was low and gravelly, thickened by primal hunger. “A spot I like to mark as mine.”

“
Yours
.” She sounded relieved. And it broke my heart.

“Mine, Ree,” I said. “Always. Forever.”

“You still want me?” It was a half-statement, half-question.

Did I
still
want her? She had to be fucking kidding me. I’d never wanted anyone MORE than I wanted her.

“Of course I want you,” I said. “But you have no idea how fucking badly I NEED you.”

Her eyes widened and her cheeks tinted crimson, as if suddenly shy. But then she cleared her throat.

“Show me,” she said, more a demand than a plea. “Show me how badly you need me, Dare.”

Shit, she didn’t have to ask twice.

My fingers wound around the back of her neck, and I pulled her into a kiss that was fueled by my need to consume her. Screw restraint. She needed convincing. My tongue parted her lips, ravenously greeting hers as I plunged deep into the warm softness of her mouth. A shudder ran through me when I heard a sweet, sultry moan vibrate deep in her throat. My blood pounded in my veins as that moan grew louder and morphed into the sound of my name.

Jesus.
Fucking
. Christ.

“I’ll never stop needing you, Ree.” I deepened our kiss and she reached under my shirt, running her fingers down my abs—
goddamn
—and lower still, where she could feel the hard evidence of just how much I needed her.

“I’m not done making sure you know how beautifully perfect you are,” I said, pulling away despite how much I wanted to keep going. “Not yet.” I had no idea how I’d managed to pant my way through a full sentence. Or how I was achieving this level of self-control.

But this had to happen. She HAD to know.

I sketched the curve of her body. “This heart has so much more strength and power that you’re not even aware of yet. It’s the heart of an art lover. The heart of a woman who’s been to hell and back, but still stands tall. A heart that’s been broken and shattered, but still beats loud.”

“For you.” Her eyes were glassy with tears, but she was smiling. Her real smile. “Wait,” she said. “I want to do this right.”

“What…” The question died on my lips as she lifted her cherry-red tank top over her head.

Damn.

Two long weeks of agony and desire swam to the surface, threatening to erupt. I forced my mind—and my cock—to chill the fuck out.

“Draw me properly,” she said as she slowly peeled off her bra. “Like one of your French girls.” She dropped the lacy garment on the bed and laughed—the sound crystal clear, and so carefree and light. A sound I’d rarely heard from Ree. True happiness.

Something deep inside my chest stirred, my own laughter echoing hers. “Hell, don’t you know the only one I cared about painting in Paris was you?” More seriously, I added, “You’re my muse, Ree. Have been for three fucking years.”

I hadn’t stopped drawing her since the day we met. When I fled to L.A., when I was in Paris, she’d always come with me. If only in my mind and on my canvas.

In paint, she’d always been mine.

I bit back a tortured groan as she leaned against the metal bars of the headboard, arching her back, parting her lips, her sapphire eyes partially hooded by long lashes. That look wasn’t meant for my heart. It was a message for another part of me. A part that stirred and throbbed at the sight of her.

Swallowing hard, I sketched her, desperately wishing my tongue was to her skin as the pencil was to the paper.

Drawing nudes was work. ART. I did it because I found limitless beauty in the human form, had fallen in love with its ever-changing nature, the way light and shadow could transform it even over the course of a day. I liked capturing it in paint, highlighting the uniqueness of body shapes and facial features. It wasn’t about sex at all, like so many people assumed.

Sketching Ree, on the other hand, this intimately, this closely, this IMPORTANTLY wreaked havoc on me. It tested my limits, made me insane.

She was undoing me.

And—
to
hell with it all
—I let her. Again.

And I was about to make it worse. And better. All at once.

“I can’t see all of you,” I said, placing the notebook down.

My eyes trailed down her body to her lap. To her skirt.

Her smile grew, turning into a smirk as she tugged the fabric over her hips and down her legs. “How about now?”