Page 17 of Ruthless Redemption

“We made a mess,” she whispered as if reading his mind.

He nodded. “I thought about apologizing, but I’m not sorry. Not about this. Are you hurt though? That I am going to have a problem with.”

She stretched her arms and legs as much as she could within the confines of his arms and legs. “Not in any way that I didn’t ask you for.”

This time he felt a slight pang of something. Maybe regret, but still not enough to make him sorry for what he’d done. For pretty much the first time in his life, he’d let go with someone else. He’d trusted her enough to take what he needed to give or to tell him to stop.

She would have, right?

He leaned up on his elbows and moved closer to her face. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her pupils still dilated. But from the clear look in her eyes she was coherent and present.

“Would you have told me to stop if it was too much?”

“It wasn’t.” She slid her eyes to the side before returning back to him.

“That isn’t what I asked.” He cupped the back of her head and lifted her closer. “Answer me.”

He hated the desperate urgency in his voice, but he had to hear it from her right now.

“Yes. I would stop you. But that isn’t what happened. You gave me something different today. A part of you I’ve never seen before. I think we both needed that.”

She stared at him with more hope than ever shining in her eyes and he didn’t know what to do about it. Crush it or embrace it. Clearly, he wasn’t an average man with average needs. He released her and hauled himself off of her.

“There are ugly parts. Not just in my life.” He raised his hand to his chest and pointed inward. “In here too. Despite my upbringing, or maybe because of it, I chose a life surrounded by death. I have so much blood on my hands they’ll never be clean.”

“My life hasn’t been clean either. Maybe that’s what makes us right for each other. Why we were so drawn together from the very beginning.”

He nodded. Maybe. He wanted to believe that.

“I’m not so sure two broken halves make a whole.”

She wrinkled up her face and sat up. “Of course it does. That’s the very definition of how to make a whole anything.”

He smiled. How could he not? Right or wrong, he loved her logic.

He reached out and touched her cheek, reveling in the softness of her skin. “I think the point is not to break things in the first place. Sometimes when you do, they can’t be fixed.”

“And sometimes they can. You just have to have faith.”

He screwed up his forehead. How could she possibly have that much faith still? They’d both been born of men who bent over backwards to screw up their lives. Since the moment they’d met life had tumbled further and further out of control.

And they were about to confront her abuser up close and personal. There was simply no way out of this except straight through the bullshit.

Blood would be shed.

Death would take its course.

And if they were lucky?

No one would be broken.

Again.

He was about to set her straight. Remind her of what they were about to face when the door behind them opened. He scrambled to cover Izzy, but there wasn’t enough time.

“What the ever loving?” JD’s angry voice boomed through the room before either of them could do much but get part of Izzy’s dress across her lap.

“Look I know—“

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