Page 129 of Wait For It

“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.”

He tipped my face up, brushing his lips over mine like a whisper.

There and gone.

Hello and goodbye.

I instinctively leaned into Killian’s body with a soft moan, needing more, demanding an act of atonement. My broken and bloodied fingernails moved up to his neck, guiding him back to me.

Our mouths moved together in repentance, speaking all the words we couldn’t say, the whispers of the promises we’d been forced to break. I parted my lips, letting the liquor on his tongue burn away the hurt.

Sister Helene had tried convincing me it was nothing more than young love, but the past two days had aged me a hundred years. I didn’t care if it was wrong, I felt more alive in his arms than I ever had inside the church.

Killian was my oxygen.

The only thing that had kept me from drowning years ago.

“Ari,” he broke away with a pant, dropping his forehead to mine. “I love you. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to stop. So, let me fight for you the only way I can. Let me be your knight in slightly tarnished armor.”

I laughed through the tears because I’d never been looking for a knight, just a sword powerful enough to take down a monster.

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