Page 138 of Through the Water

I took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

“I’ll stay close in case you change your mind.”

Killian straightened his shirt, waiting until Dean was a reasonable distance down the dock. When he approached me, his hands were raised in surrender.

My heart sped up, each beat pulsing in my ears as his intense gaze moved down my body. This wasn’t lust, though. Killian was cataloging my injuries.

“Don’t—please.” I ducked my head and turned away, feeling stripped of all dignity.

“Ari, look at me,” he pleaded softly. “Please.”

I channeled my pain into stubborn determination and shook my head. “Was there anything else you wanted to say, or can I go now?”

“Please.”

I slowly turned around to find the fight gone from his eyes. He gazed down at me with a look of anguish I felt in the place my heart used to be.

Killian cupped my chin in his hand. I let him tip my face up, longing for the numbness from before. I didn’t want to feel anymore.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I lied, as he gently traced the bruises around my throat with the pads of his fingers, swearing under his breath.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, his blue eyes wide and frantic.

I sucked in a ragged breath and shook my head, trying my best not to cry. There was a familiarity in rage, a comfort in something I’d dealt with all my life. But Killian’s compassion was going to be my undoing.

He lowered his head and brushed his lips over my skin, kissing my wounds as if it might make them better.

“Don’t do that,” I protested, pulling away to wrap my arms around my belly. “Don’t treat me like I’m a bird with a hurt wing or something that deserves pity. I ruined your life. Be mad. Scream. Just don’t be nice—not to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Killian admitted, his nostrils flaring. “For all of it. I didn’t—”

“I said it,” I suddenly confessed, needing him to hate me. “I told Brad you took my virginity—I’m the reason you’re going to lose everything.”

“Why would you lie—” Killian paused before lifting his eyes back up to my throat with a low growl. Then, his arms were around me, cradling my broken body against his like it was made of glass.

Instead of fighting his embrace, I sank further into it, breathing him in. I let myself take comfort in the only sanctuary I’d ever known.

Killian’s chest heaved in anguish. “It’s okay, baby. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I shouldn’t have said it, but I didn’t know what else—”

“Don’t,” he warned in a gravelly tone. “You did what you had to do to survive. Do you feel my heart beating? I want you to focus on that—nothing else.”

The guilt I’d been carrying for the past two days fell away as I submitted to the only man who’d ever deserve it, in the only way that had ever felt right.

By being protected.

Submissiveness had never been about degrading or making myself small, but in being strong enough to let him shoulder the weight of my burdens.

“There won’t be any need for a press conference because I’m turning myself in.”

I lifted my cheek from his chest, swallowing a whimper to whisper, “No, you can’t. You’ll go to prison—lose everything.”

Killian’s nostrils flared, and he ground his jaw, fighting to stay in control of his emotions. “I lost you. Nothing else matters.”

“But your dream—”

“Was you, girl,” he sniffed, his heavy stubble grazing my temple. “It’s always been you.”

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