Page 114 of Black Sheep

He stops abruptly, his face set in a painful grimace. “So all the times I sent you back empty-handed from the club?”

My gaze drops to my twisting fingers.

He paces to the side of the bed, his powerful body crowding me as he raises my chin and reads the answer on my face.

“Fuck!” He shoves his fingers through his hair and resumes pacing, his body growing more agitated until he stops.

When he starts to move toward me, there’s a rabid look in his eyes that I want to recoil from. But there’s also a ragged pleading that holds me in place.

His lips are bloodless white. They move for a few seconds before the words form. “You slept with him. I know you did. But…was it of your own free will?”

Shock plows through me. “You know? How?”

Gray eyes turned black and endlessly volatile pin me to the bed. “He sent me a video too.”

My hand flies to my mouth. “No! Oh God…oh God, no…” My skin prickles with a thousand darts of shame and horror.

“Did he…did he force himself on you?”

My head feels heavy when I move it. “Yes. A week after my eighteenth birthday. Then a few more times…over the years,” I whisper.

He lifts trembling fists to his face, his knuckles digging into his eyes, his forehead. The roar that charges from his soul is one I’ll never forget. Whirling away from me, he lurches for the far wall, still cursing. Still shaking, caught in the deepest vortex of hell.

He drives his fist into the wall. Then again. And again.

Fear and concern drive me off the bed. “Axel, stop!”

But he’s locked into a cycle of pain and rage. He pounds the wall again. Drywall flies.

I approach, heart in mouth. Lay a trembling hand on his back. “Axel, please stop.”

He jerks around. Deranged eyes lock onto me then drop down my body to where Finnan’s assault has faded from sight but not from Axel’s mind. “I’m going to bury him. But not until I’ve ripped him into a million fucking pieces for everything he’s done to you.”

What about what you did?

“Jesus, I fucking hated you for so long…” He says the words almost to himself, but they zap through me like an electrocution.

I stumble back a step. Then another. “You…hated me?”

“In the video, you looked like you were enjoying it. You were making these…sounds.” He stops and shudders.

“He took longer if I didn’t—” Nausea punches up my windpipe and swallows my words. I turn and run for the bathroom, barely making it before I hurl. He’s there, holding my hair out of the way. Caring for me. Loving me. Hating me. Oh God.

I bat his hands out of the way and stagger to the sink. I don’t have a toothbrush so I rinse my mouth half a dozen times. He’s there, dabbing my mouth with a damp cloth. Moving closer. Sliding his arm around me.

“Cleo—”

“You hated me.” I can’t get past that.

His chest rises and falls. “I hated you. And I loved you. I couldn’t stop. It fucking tore me apart, knowing I couldn’t turn it off. That it was taking over my life. Wanting you. Needing you. Craving you every single moment of every day. Knowing that no matter what hell hole I ended up in or how hard I worked to add more fucking zeros to my bank account, I could never close my eyes without wishing you were next to me. That I could hear you breathe. Hear you laugh. Make you scream with fucking ecstasy.”

My heart lurches. I pull away and look into his eyes. “You…love me?”

“I love you, Cleo. I never stopped loving you.”

A part of me is shrieking with happiness. The other part is curling up in a ball of agony. “You love me.”

“I love you,” he repeats, his voice pure and deep and strong. “So much. From the moment we met, every breath I’ve taken is for you. I’ll lay down my life for you, Cleo, because it’s worth nothing without you.” He steps closer, his not-quite-steady hands reaching for me.

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