Page 12 of Their Forever

“I’m okay,” I promised, my voice barely shaking as I kept my eyes on Marco. He needed the reassurance more than my friends did.

“We’re coming back to the hotel with you,” Kelsey announced, staunch in her solidarity.

“You don’t have to do that,” I protested. “Stay out and have fun. Seriously, I’m fine.”

My weak knees belied my assertion. The rush of horror at the visceral memory of Gabriel Costa had left me feeling wrung-out and shaky.

“We’ve got her,” Joseph said to my friends. “Just stick together tonight. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Jayme reassured him. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you, Ashlyn?”

“No, but thank you.” I wanted to be alone with my men. I couldn’t tell my friends about the dark memory that’d surfaced. They didn’t know anything about my time with the mafia or my trauma, and they never could. That part of our lives was over, and no one in our new life needed to be aware of my men’s criminal past.

“Call us if you need anything,” Joseph said to Jayme, a stern order.

“We will,” she agreed immediately when he turned that commanding tone on her.

Marco was still watching me, his dark eyes roving over every inch of me. He cupped my face in his hands, and his thick fingers stroked my cheeks, my lips. My skin felt oddly chilled beneath his warm touch.

His jaw firmed, and he half-turned to go after the creep again.

“Please, Daddy,” I whispered, desperate to keep him near me. “Don’t.”

A low growl of frustration rumbled from him, but his arms were gentle as they closed around me. Joseph let him take me, and Marco lifted me up to cradle me against his chest. The onlookers stared at us as he carried me out of the bar. I almost asked him to put me down, but my knees were still shaky. I wasn’t sure if I could walk on my high heels without stumbling.

And I knew that he needed to hold me. Touching me was the only thing preventing him from turning around and beating the crap out of the guy who’d dared to grab me.

I relaxed in his hold, resting my cheek on his shoulder with a relieved sigh. The last of the tension finally left my body, and I put my full trust in him to carry me away from the awful incident.

We walked back to the hotel, Joseph murmuring soothing words while Marco remained stiffly silent. He couldn’t seem to unclench his granite jaw yet. I brushed my fingers along it, and he relaxed a fraction beneath my tender touch.

He didn’t say anything until we were back in our opulent suite, Joseph locking the door behind us.

“Why were you alone in the bar?” he demanded in a gravelly rumble.

I squirmed in his iron arms, sensing that I was close to earning a punishment for my carelessness. “I was about to text you to pick me up,” I protested. “I wasn’t going to walk back on my own.”

“You should’ve stayed with Jayme and Kelsey until we got there,” Joseph admonished, the stern note to his tone making me shiver.

My men were seriously displeased. They couldn’t handle it when I was unsafe. I loved their protectiveness, but something occurred to me, unease nipping at my mind.

“Wait. I hadn’t gotten a chance to text you yet when you saved me from that creep. How did you know? Were you watching me with my friends?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

I was grateful for the rescue, but we were going to have to lay down some boundaries.

“Yes,” Marco said, completely unrepentant.

“You can’t do that,” I countered, my own voice uncharacteristically stern. “You have to give me time with my girlfriends. They wouldn’t like being watched.”

“They don’t have to know,” Joseph said firmly. “Do you really think we’re going to let you travel around Europe by yourself?”

I gasped. “You’re planning on watching me the whole time I’m travelling with Jayme next month? It’s a girls’ trip. I promised her that we would spend time together, just the two of us. She’s my best friend. I love you both more than anything, but you can’t be with me all the time.”

Marco’s dark brows drew low over his eyes in a forbidding expression that made me quiver inside. “And what would’ve happened if we hadn’t been watching you tonight?”

I sighed, recognizing that my error had only reinforced their determination to shadow me everywhere I went. I looked from him to Joseph, ensuring they both read the sincerity in my eyes.

“I promise I won’t go anywhere without Jayme again,” I swore. “I made a mistake. I won’t repeat it.” A delicate shudder rolled through my body at the memory of the man’s groping hands on me. Marco tensed.

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