Page 51 of Lost Touch
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to you. If Victoria and her family recognize you as my mate—and I think she really likes you.” He shifted down, kissing my neck in a way that I absolutely could not allow to distract me.
“I like her too. If they recognize me…?”
“If anything happened to you, Victoria wouldn’t want to mate with me anyway, so he doesn’t have any reason to hurt you, whether we’re mated or not. Okay? Good enough?”
“No! Because you still haven’t answered my—God, stop that, you’re making it impossible to—”
“That’s kind of the idea,” Drew whispered into my ear, punctuating the words with a flick of his tongue.
“Drew!”
“Gods, you taste so fucking good—”
“Drew!” That came out a shout.
He stopped, but he didn’t move back. “He might tell all my clients to drop me, but I don’t care,” Drew said after a moment, with almost palpable effort. My anxiety cranked up another unbearable notch. He’d already told me that trade-off would be worth it to him, but this total lack of concern? Shouldn’t he be at least slightly upset about it? “And he might make my dad’s life hell. Frankly, I don’t care about that anymore either. It’s worth it not to have his bullshit hanging over my head anymore. But you’re safe, and that’s all that matters.”
That wasn’t all that mattered, and Drewreallyshouldn’t be that nonchalant. I tried to protest, but he rolled me over onto my front, smothering any arguments I wanted to make, and thrust down, hard, growling against my neck, his knot forcing me open all over again.
He hadn’t even gone soft this time.
I gave in to it, because what choice did I have? And I loved it, that pressure inside me, his weight on me, knowing how much he wanted and needed to take what my body could give him.
But the worry didn’t go away, even when I succumbed to two and a half days of his constant attention and passed out halfway through. My last thought was:This isn’t working anymore. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that simple.
***
I woke without Drew wrapped around me, in me, or even next to me. It felt cold and lonely, and I popped up on my elbows, wide awake and terrified.
“I’m here,” Drew said.
My head whipped around. He sat by the bed in the chair he’d used to keep watch over me after our escape, the one usually covered in a pile of half-clean laundry these days. He’d gotten dressed, too—in some of the clothes that’d been heaped on the chair, by the wrinkles.
And he looked like hell otherwise, too: dark, grayish circles under his bloodshot eyes, pale cheeks, several days’ worth of beard growth, and lips pressed into a flat, grim line.
A heavy coil of tension balled in my belly.
“Drew? What’s wrong?” Other than the obvious, of course.
He slumped forward, elbows on his knees, scrubbing his hands over his face. When he removed them and met my eyes, the bleak, lost expression in his made me quail.
“You were bleeding,” he said heavily. “When I pulled out of you finally. Not a lot,” he added quickly, not actually making me feel that much better. “Not internally. If there’d been blood like that the doctor would already be here. But you were bleeding, Ash.” He swallowed hard. “I made you bleed.”
I clenched the cheeks of my ass together, knowing I wouldn’t feel a damn thing but reflexively trying anyway. That’d hurt, wouldn’t it? Maybe even hurt a lot.
Knowing that I had an injury but being unable to detect it with my own body’s natural processes freaked me out to a degree that Drew’s confession, his guilt and shame and fear for me, hadn’t achieved.
My head dropped down into the pillow, and I shuddered, trying to get it together.
“It’s getting worse, Ash. Not better. Right now, Iknowyou’re hurt, but it’s still taking a lot of effort not to get right back on top of you. And worse.”
Worse? I bit my lip to hold in the moan that wanted to come out. Worse. Exactly what we fucking needed.
“Yeah?” I asked. “What’s worse?”
“It’s getting harder and harder for me not to bite you for real.”
That made me lift my head. His eyes glowed full amber-gold, obliterating the dark brown beneath, and he flexed his hands, finally balling them into fists on his knees.
