Page 35 of Bedding Rose
She hasn’t passed out. It’s actually worse. Her eyes aren’t closed, they’re glazed, haunted, as empty as that night I found her in the bathroom.
Shit.
No. Lil reina.
I glance up, only to see a young guy with a basketball player’s slim, tall build striding away. His back is to us and his hands are in his pockets, trying to act nonchalant when he’s clearly anything but. My instincts immediately howl for me to pursue him. To rip him limb from limb, even though I don’t have any idea who he is or what he just did—only that he’s somehow triggered my girl.
“Rose,” I whisper in her ear as I scoop her up bridal style. She weighs so little in my arms. Holding her would be perfect, a sensation I’d treasure in any other circumstance. But right now, I don’t get to focus on the way her body feels so soft and pliant against mine. I’m too busy scanning her face as I carry her toward the little meeting room that we filled with pamphlets and auction materials earlier.
I nudge open the door with my foot and then kick it closed behind us. Thankfully, the space is empty.
I sit down on one of the plastic meeting tables, keeping Rose on my lap, uncaring that the table groans underneath my weight—the stupid thing was only built for laptops and handouts, not people.
I hold her close, feeling her trembling as she clutches at me, gliding those arms around my waist underneath my suit coat. Her heartbeat is frantic.
“Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe.” I take slow, deep breaths, and eventually, she mimics me, burrowing in and holding me closer, as if touching me soothes her. I can’t lie, a part of me absolutely loves that she’s soaking up my comfort like a sweet little kitten, but the bigger part of me—the angry gorilla—wants to know who I have to kill for making her need comfort in the first place.
I pepper the top of her head with kisses as I wait for her to calm down. When I feel certain her heart rate has returned to normal, I bring a finger up underneath her chin and tilt her face toward mine.
“What happened?” I keep my voice to a whisper, knowing that if I even attempt to speak in a normal tone right now, I’m going to end up sounding angry.
Her soft green eyes study mine, flickering back and forth. Those beautiful painted red lips of hers press into a thin line and, for a second, I think she’s going to deny me again. But then she grabs my hand, her small fingers threading between mine, her bones as tiny and delicate as matchsticks next to my big mitts.
“Guess you finally get to know … I went to a frat party with Lily.” Her expression immediately grows rueful, regret etched across her furrowed brow.
It takes me a moment to catch up with her, to realize she’s talking about the past.
She takes a deep breath before she continues, “I just wanted a break. Mom had three events in a row that week and I was justdone. I wanted one night of not being me. So I got drunk. I hooked up with Nick.” Her head nods in the direction of the door and I immediately tense because I know she’s indicating that that skinny young fucker I just saw in the lobby has had his hands on her.
I want to slice off his hands. I want to turn them into a rearview mirror ornament, put a chain through them and let them swing back and forth next to the rosary already there, a visceral warning to anyone who even considers touching my lil reina. My girl.
I have to force my muscles to relax, to keep my fingers loose instead of letting them dig into her skin the way I want to in order to plaster her as close to my body as is physically possible. Part of me wants to lean down and bite her neck and then suck on her tender flesh until she bruises just so that she walks out of here wearing my claim for that fucker and all the other assholes out there to see.
But Rose’s confession hasn’t ended. “I went with him up to his room in the Alpha Tau house. And I said yes. I mean, at first. But once I said it … he held me down …”
I can’t help the way my fingers curl into her hip then.
Her voice shakes slightly, and a single tear glides down her cheek as she continues breathily, “He called his friends in—”
RAGE.
Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life before glides through me like molten steel and hardens into sharp, deadly resolve.
I’m standing, gently sliding Rose down my legs and holding her upper arms until she’s gotten her balance, but all of that is on autopilot because my mind has already left this room. It’s out there, with that stupid fucking frat boy—mentally pounding in his nose, cracking his skull.
“He called them in?” I ask, unable to keep the growl out of my tone.
“And they … all of them … took turns …” She can’t continue. She’s literally unable to speak, the horror of that memory closing up her throat and making her pinch her eyes shut. Rose’s fingernails claw at her thighs through her dress and I see what she’s doing—my poor girl is aching for a way to release that horror scrabbling around inside her brain, to ease the pressure that has her teetering on the brink of combustion.
I pull her to me and press a rough kiss against her lips, unable to be gentle right now. But I use that kiss to wipe away her memories of those scrawny, pathetic wastes of skin. I nip and bite at her lips, suck her tongue into my mouth, and try to inhale her misery so that she won’t hurt anymore.
I bleed for her. I ache inside in a way that’s more painful than anything I’ve ever known. Even the time I got shot doesn’t top this—this horrible wound on behalf of my precious girl. I pour every ounce of the desperation and affection that I feel for her into the kiss as I link our fingers. I know I’ve succeeded when her open-mouthed kisses become more visceral, when her tongue does just as much exploring as my own.
When I’ve got her gasping, her mind pulled out of that dark pit, I unlink our hands, wrap my arms around her to grip her ass, and pick her up. Now that her needs have been met, I need to deal with my own.
I carry her over to the meeting room’s windows on the right side of the room, which overlook the courtyard. I shove aside a pompous, brocade curtain before setting Rose down, spinning her, and pressing my girl up against the glass.
“You stand here and watch,” I order, leaning down to press one last kiss to her black curls.
