When We Met

Not after today.

“Tell me what happened,” he murmured in encouragement near my ear. His breath felt cold against my skin where it met with the endless streams of fiery tears flooding down my face. He leaned in closer, sweeping his mouth across the wetness, gathering my tears up with his lips.

I shuddered.

Oh God.

I couldn’t handle this, but I wanted it all the same. Wanted him to take care of me. To make it better.

My avenging angel.

Sent to rescue me from all the wrongs of this world.

He kissed me on my neck, his voice so sure as he released it against the shell of my ear. “I’m here now, baby. Nothing can hurt you. I’ve got you.”

Grief shook my chest.

Darryn slowly rolled me onto my back, and I stared up at him staring down at me. He watched me with all his compassion.

My voice was hoarse. “It h-h-hurts,” I tried to get out, my mouth so dry as I forced the admission from my tongue.

It hurts.

For a flash, the hazel of his eyes pulsed with aggression, an imprisoned rage. But his expression was contrary to what flamed in his eyes. The lines edging the set of his grim mouth promised me it didn’t matter. That like he’d promised me earlier, no matter what I had to say to him, it wouldn’t change the way he felt.

But I no longer felt like telling him.

I couldn’t. Not now.

I just needed him to make me feel better, to cover up all the ache.

I gripped him by the back of the neck and pulled him down to me, desperation behind the ferocity of my kiss.

Darryn froze, then made a veiled attempt to push away, but I just pulled him closer. “Please. Make me feel better. Take this away from me. Just for tonight.”

His nose was an inch from mine, his eyes frantic as they roved all over my face, everywhere and nowhere at once. Confusion and fear lined his, like maybe he felt compelled to save me from myself.

From this decision.

But this decision had already been made.

I wanted him to have me. No words could assuage the hurt and humiliation, the shame Hunter had brought on my name.

No one else but Darryn—his touch, his mouth, his body.

I needed it.

“Please,” I whimpered, arching up. My hips met his like a plea. Please.

Agony twisted up his face for the briefest moment, before he succumbed and dropped to his elbows, caging me.

And I knew . . . knew I’d never be free of him.

And I didn’t want to be.

A frenzy lit in him as soon as our bodies aligned, and he rocked against my core. Need spiraled through my stomach, dropping low, throbbing a discordant beat between my thighs. I felt myself grow aroused. Wet. And I wanted to be embarrassed because I thought maybe he could feel it. But with him? I couldn’t. With him I didn’t feel ashamed.

“Oh God,” I moaned, my hips lifting from the bed to meet him, the roughness of the seam of his jeans rubbing against me. “Please.”

Darryn ran his hands down my sides and slipped them under my shirt. His palms were hot and desperate, and I didn’t stop him when he lifted it and slowly pulled it over my head, for the first time allowing him to peel a piece of clothing from my body.

Darryn shifted his weight to his knees, hovering over me, taking all of me in. His eyes dropped from my eyes, to my mouth, before they roamed over the redness that burned my skin.

My fingers were shaking as I dragged them down his back and to the hem of his shirt. I pulled it over his head. Darryn dropped back down, bringing his skin flush against mine. He felt both soft and hard, rippled muscle and strength that eased over me like a downy blanket, sent to comfort and protect.

My whole body sang, the horrors of this afternoon clashing with how safe Darryn made me feel. Trust flowed from my body in waves, as it arched and begged and bucked into his.

“I need to feel you . . . need to feel you everywhere,” I pled, raking my greedy nails down Darryn’s back.

He groaned, his hoarse voice vibrating against my neck. “Fuck, Misha . . . baby . . . God, I need you, too. You don’t know how much.”

His thick erection strained through his jeans, and I rubbed against it, letting him know that I understood, promising my intentions were the same.

I needed him.

All of him.

He rolled onto his back and pulled me on top of him. He pushed me back so I was straddling his waist. Darryn stared up at me, keeping almost all of his attention on my face, but he kept stealing these glances down my body, at the bra that was still covering up my breasts, at my chest that heaved and my stomach that clenched.

I reached back and flicked open the clasp on my bra, and my head tipped back as I let the straps slide down my arms.

Because I wanted him to see me. All of me. To understand that he was the only one I ever wanted to see me this way. That all of this should have belonged to him and I never should have given it away.

Regret filled up every crevice of my heart, and I wished . . . wished it’d been him, that the first time I’d had sex it hadn’t been all a ploy to bring me to my knees, just a wicked game played by wicked boys.

I wished I’d been cherished.

Loved.

Like I was sure Darryn was loving me now.

Darryn moaned as he grabbed me by the hips, pressing me firmly against him. “Can’t wait to be inside you.”

All that energy fired, pinged across the confines of my room, and clashed in an all-out war with the hurt of this afternoon. Everything felt so heavy and light. Blinding.

I wanted Darryn to take it all away.

I rocked over him, and on a ragged hiss, he gripped me tighter. Darryn pinched his eyes closed as if he’d been tripped, caught somewhere in his own painful thoughts.

“Wa

His words slammed into my consciousness. Images flashed. Me in a position so much like this, my breasts bared and my head thrown back.

I knew what it looked like in the video. Like I was lost in passion, like I’d wanted to be exposed, set on display. Like I was desperate for attention.

But I’d been in pain, both physically and emotionally. It had been my first time and Hunter had just rammed inside me before I was ready, after he’d persuaded me to ride him because he said that was the only way he liked it.

All of those warning bells had been going off, and I knew something was so off, because I didn’t feel loved or safe.

The worst part of it all was that he’d convinced me to let him take a picture. At least that was what I thought it was, because he’d actually been recording me.

A bet that he could get a virgin on top and a picture to prove it.

That’s all it’d been. A joke.

Horrified, I felt like every cell in my body froze, before it began to shake uncontrollably. I fell forward, keeping myself braced on the strength of Darryn’s chest before I crumbled.

I wanted to blink away the image, to assign it to coincidence.

But there was no mistaking Darryn’s words. He said he wanted to kill Hunter . . . for making me ashamed.

Darryn knew. He’d lied to me.

His eyes flew open as if he’d just realized the slip he made. He looked up at me with panic strewn all over his face.

“What did you just say?” I demanded, dread whipping through my entire being, a cold chill biting my skin.

I shivered and did my best to swallow down the nausea that rushed up my throat.

Rapidly, Darryn blinked and shook his head, as if he were searching for something to say.

For an excuse.

Oh my God.

No.

I scrambled in an effort to get away. Darryn grabbed my wrist, trying to yank me back onto the bed, but I jerked it away and fell to my knees on the floor. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”

I fisted the edge of the sheet and ripped it from the bed, clutched it to my front as if it could shield me from all the pain that tore me in two. Violently.