Page 7 of Blind Sin

“Press conference. Your father was with her, not Mercier, but don't worry about her now. You'll be with her soon.” A cold breeze hits my face telling me that we’ve left the building. Nix sucks in a breath. “Jesus Fuck. What did the fucker do to you? You are covered in bruises.”

“He hit me a couple of times when I asked about Lucy, but most of my pain is a result of the crash.” I remember the guard’s words to my father. “I might have broken some ribs.”

Nix gently lowers me to my feet. Beneath me the floor is cold and hard and I realize I don’t have any shoes. I gasp and hold my chest as pain reverberates through it.

“I’m going to go back there and murder the fucker myself.” Anger fills his voice.

“Don’t leave me.” I grip onto his harm as I breathe through the pain.

I can almost feel the angry heat coming off him in waves. He takes a few seconds to calm down but when he speaks again, his voice has lost its angry edge. “I need to see how badly you’re hurt. I’m going to lift your shirt to see how bad the damage is. I don’t want to take you to a hospital, but I will if I have to. Is that okay?”

As his fingers pull up the underside of my shirt and skim my stomach, the memories of our night together flood back to me. I push them aside, focusing on the pain and the need to be safe. The sensation of his touch is both familiar and foreign, and I try not to let my mind wander too far down that path. I wince as he presses down slightly then funs his fingers across my abdomen above my stomach. He repeats the action, then mercifully skips my breasts and continues the action higher up, before lowering my shirt.

“I don’t think your ribs are broken, but we’ll need to keep an eye on you. We’ll stop at a pharmacy to get you something for the pain before we get to the airport.”

Despite him telling me that my ribs are fine, his touch has made me light headed and dizzy. “Airport?”

My knees buckle beneath me as the dizziness takes over. He catches me and holds me to him as the dizziness subsides. I lean into his warmth lapping it up as I rest my head on his shoulder and concentrate on trying to breathe. When my head clears, he opens a car door and lays me down along the back seat. “We’re meeting Mercier and Lucinda at an airport and then we’re taking you somewhere where your father will never find you.”

Despite the pain, I snort. “You don’t know my father very well. He has eyes and ears everywhere. There’s no escaping him. You should know that by now.”

He closes the car door then opens another one before sliding into the driver’s seat in front of me. “No one will disturb us where we’re going. Not even Peter Waldgrave.”

“If Lucy is with us, he'll find us,” I inform him. “He found her last time, and he'll find her again.”

“Not this time,” he growls. “This time I'm not going to let you out of my sight for a second.”

I'm spared from having to reply to that as the other car door opens. “Let’s get out of here,” Dacre shouts then pauses. “Shit. What did he do to you? I should have murdered the fucker.”

“You didn’t?” Nix asks as the engine rumbles into life.

“Nope, but I did lock the door after I made sure his love nuggets were no longer fit for purpose. He might live if someone finds him in time. I even left him his phone, so it’s just a race to see if he stops screaming before the battery runs out... Christ, we need to get you to a hospital.”

“She’s fine,” Nix snaps as we start to move. “I checked her out. We’ll get her some pain meds on the way. I don’t want to be still here when more of Waldgrave’s goons arrive to exact revenge because you left the asshole’s phone with him.

“I’m not a fucking murderer, Nix,” Dacre snaps back. “I might want to be now I see what he did to our girl.” I feel a rush of excitement as I hear the anger in his voice. Two weeks ago, no one knew I existed apart from Lucy and now I have men willing to kill for me... almost.

“Stop the fucking car!”

We come to an abrupt stop and I think that Dacre might actually go back and murder the man that took me until Dacre slips between the front seats to the back.

I moan slightly as he lifts my head. Initially thinking he wants me to sit up, he instead shifts beneath me and gently lays my head back down on his lap.

“Go!” he urges to Nix. “I’ll take care of her.”

Nix kicks the car into gear and we speed out onto, I assume, the open road.

Being so close to Dacre has another slew of emotion warring for dominance along with relief and fear. Dacre and I shared a night that was magical. It was the closest thing to a date I’ve ever experienced. He also made me see. Actually see, if only for a few brief seconds.

His hand runs idly through my hair, sending bolts of electricity to my core with each stroke. When he leans in to talk to me and his body touches mine, I wince in pain, but when he pulls back, I immediately miss it.

“Sorry, Lauren. Fuck. It feels so weird to be calling you Lauren. Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere,” I joke. My body is bruised, and each bump in the road sends jolts of pain through me. Dacre cradles my head to him as I whimper with each jolt. I close my eyes, allowing myself to lean into Dacre's comforting touch.

After what feels like an hour, Nix pulls over and gets out of the car. I’m so sleepy, cocooned in Dacre’s warmth, that I don’t even question it, and Dacre makes no move to follow Nix. Five minutes later Nix’s back. Dacre helps me into a sitting position and Nix hands me a pill and a bottle of water. “Take these,” he says. “They'll help with the pain. It’s the strongest over the counter medicine I could get.”

I swallow the two pills, chasing them down with the water.

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