Page 52 of Crime Lord’s Captive

Gavin jerked as if she slapped him. “Don’t ask me that.”

“I am,” she said, their beautiful surrounding at odds with the hell they were dancing around.

“You’re recovering. You don’t need to—”

“Gavin, tell me.”

Gavin rose and turned his back to her,but not before she saw his murderous expression.

“He was on top of you, dick out. I didn’t know if he was finishing, beginning—” Gavin let out a growl and ran his hands through his hair. “You weren’t moving. I fucking lost it. I didn’t even look at you, I just wanted to kill.”

“Gavin.” She held her hands out to him because she could see he was shaking. Gavin turned, movements precise and stiff as he walked to her. When she tugged on his wrist, he fell to his knees in front of her. He didn’t meet her eyes. His were focused on a target over her shoulder that no one could see. Lyla could taste the violence and rage bottled up in him. She clasped his face between her hands and kissed the corner of his mouth. He didn’t relax, didn’t look at her. “I’m fine, Gavin.”

“Are you?” he asked, voice gritty and rough.

Still, he didn’t look at her. Lyla wrapped her arm around his neck and leaned into him, needing and giving comfort.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. In less than a day, being held in a hellhole changed her. How long would it take to feel normal again? To feel safe? When would she feel clean or close her eyes and dream of something other than the monsters who kidnapped her?

They stayed that way, embracing one another, lost in their own thoughts. She rested her chin on his shoulder, but his hands stayed fisted on the cushions on either side of her. Lyla thought back to that night and tightened her hold on him, needing reassurance even though she saw what Gavin did to Pervert.

“Maybe he didn’t have a chance to fuck me,” she whispered.

“That’s what I have to believe,” Gavin bit out.

Lyla bit her bottom lip. She wanted to believe that Pervert didn’t rape her, that Gavin interrupted before he had the chance. Lyla nuzzled Gavin even though he felt like a block of stone. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For coming for me, for taking care of me.” She cursed the tears that rose. At least their position meant she could talk freely without being pinned by Gavin’s soul searching eyes. “I’ve been difficult and I kept you from work—”

Gavin jerked back, forcing her to loosen her hold on him.

“I promised that it wouldn’t touch you...” he said harshly.

For a moment, he looked crazed. Then, he dropped his head to hide his expression. The cushions shifted beneath her as he strangled them. He was a bomb waiting to detonate. He wouldn’t lash out at her, Lyla knew, but the waves of violence emanating from him turned her stomach.

“He’s dead,” Lyla reminded him.

Gavin raised his head. The intensity of his gaze made her uneasy.

“You saw what I did,” he said.

“Yes.” Even while the savagery of Gavin’s rage terrified her, she would sleep better knowing that that man was dead. He didn’t deserve to live.

“You think I’m a monster?” he asked gruffly.

Lyla clasped his face. “You’re my monster.”

Gavin shuddered and wrapped his arms around her waist, head on her breasts. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes.” She didn’t need to think about it. He was swimming in guilt, tortured by the kidnapping. Lyla’s hands sifted through his hair in an effort to dim the awful energy engulfing him. “How did you find me?”

“Carmen called us when she couldn’t find you. Stupid bastards didn’t get rid of your phone until they were downtown. I had men searching the area when they called. I kept them on the phone to track them. It still took a couple of hours. Too long.”

“You got the second guy?”

“Second guy?”

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