Page 93 of Love Bites Extra Hard

Her cheek was to my chest, and there was too much clothing separating us, but I didn’t try to remove it. The moment wasn’t about sex, or even intimacy. It was about Avery facing her demons.

“Almost a year,” she whispered. “It got worse over time, as those situations usually do. The night it ended was just like so many others. We fucked. He got angry. I bled. When he grabbed my throat and marked me while he cut off my air supply, I finally snapped. It felt like a dam blocking my magic had burst open. He was immobilized entirely by my power. I thought about just leaving, but he had figured out where my sisters and I lived. He had threatened them. There was only one option.”

She trembled against me.

I held her tighter, trying not to shake alongside her.

“I killed him,” she said. “It doesn’t haunt me, either. I killed him to protect my sisters and to free myself. And then I set his houseon fire to hide what I had done. I told my sisters we broke up, and spent the next year tense, waiting for someone to show up looking for revenge. They didn’t. We survived. And I don’t regret it.”

“Good. For what he did to you, he deserves so fucking much worse.”

She hugged me tighter, and I felt her tears on my shirt. “I’ve never told anyone that before. It feels good not to be the only one who knows. Just… don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t.” The words were fierce, and I meant them with everything I had.

“I shouldn’t believe you, but I think I do.”

Kissing her forehead, I pulled her more securely to my chest.

She was everything to me.

Eventually, she would be as confident about that as I was.

But for the moment, I’d wait as long as I needed to.

seventeen

AVERY

I found myself watching Talon,after he marked me.

During the tour, I tried to see if he acted any different. Prouder. More cruel.

He seemed the same to me.

When he shared his secret about Stella, my emotions got the best of me, and I shared my history with Wendell too.

It felt like I could breathe deeply for the first time since everything had happened with that bastard.

But I still watched Talon.

Watched him interact casually with the other dragons as we made our way to the back of the room with the hot springs in it.

Watched him hold my hand proudly, without any obnoxious signs of dominance.

Watched him relax as we slipped into the water together, him in his boxer-briefs and me in my bra and panties.

He’d blocked me from everyone’s view while I stripped, but my sisters had done the same thing. So that wasn’t too possessive.

Even when the water engulfed us both, and I put space between us, he didn’t argue. Or tell me to come closer. Or stay obnoxiously close. He just let me do my thing.

I swam down a slight curve toward the bottom of the spring. It made a good little resting spot, so I got comfortable there, staring up at Talon’s legs far above me.

He hadn’t acted differently.

He seemed… the same.

Which was weird. But in a good way.

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