Nothing will hurt me with his body shielding mine. Except too much already has.
It’s been days since he started sleeping over here.
It’s been years that I’ve been reliving the worst night of my life.
“You’re here. You’re safe.” He doesn’t kiss me. He holds me, protects me. My fierce dark knight. My psychotic villain who’ll always be here to save the girl. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, love. No one can hurt you.”
“Landon?”
“Regan!” My sister’s voice and Mojo’s yapping are like an explosion in my small apartment. “Regan, where are you?”
“I have her.” Landon won’t tell her I’m fine. He won’t lie, just like he hasn’t over the last couple of nights when I’ve woken up crying and screaming. “Go back to bed, Rosemary. I have her.”
“Okay. Okay,” she murmurs. I hear the terror in her voice. “Let’s go, Mojo.”
The door clicks behind them. Then the lock.
My vision clears. My tears slowly dry.
“I’m sorry.”
That lands me a growl and a feral kiss that leaves me breathless. “He touched you again?”
Landon doesn’t know the extent of what happened to me that night. He hasn’t looked it up online, either. He’s waiting for me to tell him.
More sobs rip from my chest. He shushes them with his lips over mine, with another passionate, vicious kiss. Through his actions, he reminds me who I belong to. The only man who’ll ever get to hurt and touch me again.
As his teeth tug on my lip and his tongue rubs mine, I dare to wish. I wish I could be completely honest with him.
He deserves that. He deserves the world.
This rough and rugged man who’s been working from the small desk I set up for him in my store. Who brought me a man’s toe that I keep next to the eyeballs in my cupboard. He said some asshole on Moth to a Flame had sent me filthy messages before I closed the account, so there it is. His toe.
I even have a chastity belt that I have to wear to work. He’s with me there the entire time. Unlocks it when I need to use the bathroom. Because it’s not meant to humiliate me.
It’s symbolic. He loves it when my pussy is confined by black leather and metal, and he alone holds the key to it.
He gives me so much of himself.
And I can’t do the simplest thing in return. Tell him the truth.
I want to give them to him so badly.
I can’t.
Can’t tell him about the torture Lester put me through that night.
That would break his heart.
He keeps talking about breeding me. About putting babies inside me.
Apart from having me, having kids together would turn him into the happiest man on the planet.
My story will put an end to that. It will break his heart. He’ll be in so much pain.
When the tears and hiccups get worse, Landon grips my chin.
“I’m not having this anymore.You’renot having this.” He’s dead set on burning the entire planet and taking me with him to the gates of hell. “I promised I’d protect you, and so help me, I will not go back on my word. I won’t fail you, Regan. Ever.”