Page 36 of Brutal Devil
“I’m coming in.”
I really don’t want him anywhere near me. This is all his fault. If it weren’t for him, my father wouldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t be married to my enemy.
“Stay out.”
The door clicks open. I bury my face against my thighs, curling into a ball. I feel his presence rather than hear or see him entering the room. It’s dark and powerful and magnetic.
A hand presses between my shoulder blades, hot and callused and big. I think the gesture is meant as a comfort, but I can’t help my instinctive reaction to flinch and jerk away.
“Baby.”
I wish I could tell him not to call me that, but another garbled sob leaves me. I can’t describe the tangled mess I’m feeling. I wasn’t close to my father. I hated the man he was. And because I’m a daughter instead of a son, I never measured up. I never mattered. But that doesn’t mean I wanted him to be murdered in my arms.
Priest strokes up and down my spine. His hand is hot on the bare skin my strapless dress reveals, under my hair. I like the connection even though I shouldn’t. I can’t escape him without scooting on my ass all over the floor. So I stay here, hiding my face, curling into myself, hoping to disappear.
“You need to get cleaned up.” His voice is low and deep, rumbling into my ear.
With a jolt, I turn my face toward him. He’s watching me with that intense, deep-blue stare that sees to my soul.
Looking at him was a mistake.
He’s too much.
“Go away,” I tell him, and then I humiliate myself by punctuating my demand with a huge, hiccupping sob.
His hard expression softens, his jaw moving as if there’s something he wants to say but can’t. Or won’t. And then, he scoops me into his arms and lifts me like I’m a child. I don’t even bother to protest as he carries me across the room to the bathroom. Gently, as if he fears I might break, he deposits me on the counter.
His heat radiates into me, but I’m still cold. My teeth chatter.
I close my eyes.
“Luna.”
“Go away.” I’m shivering now.
“Look at me, baby.”
“No.”
He cups my face. “Look. At. Me.”
The stern command and his touch have me obeying.
“You’re in shock,” he tells me.
I want to sayno shit. But nothing emerges. All I can think about is those horrible seconds that feel like a lifetime, my father embracing me, the violent twitch of his body as the bullet made impact. The blood.
It’s still on me.
Priest washed my hands and face when we got here, and I was too numb to protest. But I’m still in my wedding dress, and I’m a bloody mess.
“Can you stand?”
“Y-yes.”
At least, I think I can stand.
He grasps my waist and helps me to my feet on the cold tiles. Another shudder goes through me, and he makes a growling noise, then flips two switches on. A heated fan starts blasting from above, and it’s a relief because I’m cold, so cold.
