Page 82 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 2

He picked me up and set me back in bed. I undid my pants and shoved them off, wincing when my wrist throbbed. Rhodes moved around the room, flicking off the overhead lamp before turning on the bathroom light. He left the door to the en suite open a crack. The bathroom light pierced the blackness, makingit possible to see almost everything in the room. Then he crawled back into bed, hauled me over and plastered me to his chest.

“Is this why you left my bed the other night?” he asked out of the blue. The damn man was too perceptive.

I nodded.

“We’re going to work on that. You sleep with me,” he said, and it was more of a demand than a request.

“It will happen again,” I warned, whispering against his chest.

He wrapped his arms around me more fully. “Then we’ll brave those monsters in the night together.”

“Sometimes, like this evening, I forget where I am, and I’m back there.”

“I gathered that from your response tonight. Like I said, we’ll battle those demons when they happen. Until then, you’re with me, where I can protect you.” He kissed the top of my head.

I admitted the ugly truth. “I could end up hurting you.”

“You’ll hurt me more by making me sleep alone.”

“Rhodes…” I sighed, rubbing my face against his comfortable chest, loving what he wanted to do and worrying for him at the same time.

“I want everything with you, Maia. The smiles, the laughter, and yes, even the tears. You can’t combat something like what happened tonight alone. I’ll not allow it. We brave that shit together. My future wife sleeps by my side, protected by my arms. It will be my voice you hear, bringing you back to a place where you are safe and cared for.”

“I don’t deserve you,” I croaked.

“You deserve so much more than me. But don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll give you everything you could ever want and more.” It was not only a promise but a vow.

“All I’ve ever wanted was for my family to be safe and to maybe find a little corner of the world where I could live inpeace. Then, who knows, maybe one day I’d be gifted a love I could call my own.”

“You’ll have the first very soon, and the rest will come with time. We both have some emotional walls to scale, and some demons to fight, but we’ve got each other.”

I smiled and closed my eyes. “You’re right. We’ve got each other, and that’s more than I’ve ever had.”

Rhodes arm tightened around me for a second as he let out a breath. “Me too, Maia. That’s more than I’ve ever had too.”

Episode 56

Madness

MADAM ALANA

It took me a solid ten minutes before I tapped my fingernail on the door of the guest room where Rhodes and Maia should have been sleeping. I was about to head up to bed earlier when I heard a muffled scream. Could it have been the two of them having sexual relations? Absolutely. Rhodes did not seem to be a man to flaunt his intimate activities, especially in light of his daughter being present. I believed he’d have more restraint. I wavered on whether or not I should check on them. Eventually, my concern outweighed the possibility of embarrassment, and now here I was.

Behind the door I could hear shuffling and murmuring, then the door opened with a flourish. I stepped back, clenching my robe as Rhodes stood there, his eyes tired, but his expression alert. He wore a white T-shirt and his boxer briefs.

“Hey, everything okay?” he asked me, pushing through the door and into the hallway.

I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest, rubbing the chill out of them.

“Oui, though I was going to ask you the same thing. I heard a scream come from your room earlier, and with everything that has happened, I wanted to ensure yours and Maia’s safety.”

Rhodes rubbed a hand over his face and then through his hair. “Sorry we disturbed you. She had a nightmare. A…uh…nasty flashback from her life before now.”

I gasped and covered my mouth. “Oh, no!”

Maia and I had shared bits and pieces of our past but not enough to paint a full picture. I told her how I’d been in the auction, that Christophe had purchased me thirty years ago, and how I had been homeless until the auction. Over the years, Maia had only shared with me that her family had kicked her out of her home in Colorado when she was a teenager, and she’d made her way by bus to Las Vegas. I knew she’d pick-pocketed and used the casino’s buffets as her primary means of securing food when she was much younger. Many times, I tried to take her under my wing, but Maia was a skittish little thing and didn’t trust most adults. It took an ungodly amount of time just to get her to have lunch with me or allow me to provide her with a phone and pay for the minutes back when we met. I may have been one of Maia’s allies, but we weren’t close friends. I hoped to change that with her marrying Rhodes.

He shook his head. “It was bad, Alana. And worse, she has family that needs my help to escape a terrible situation.”

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