Page 25 of The Bodyguard Undone

I reach for him. My fingers brush against his cheek then I cup his face.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he says, as he slips from me.

He lays me down gently before he swings his leg over the bench and steps away from me.

I don’t need to ask what’s wrong. I already know. I already knew this was why I couldn’t wait to see him.

“Kayne,” I’m already pleading breathlessly as I get to my feet. He turns around and faces me, the color of eyes that stunningly, dominant blue that hauls me in and never lets me go.But there’s rage as he sees the bruises on my body. The ugly purple marks Roger left behind on my skin.

He hasn’t even seen my back yet.He only felt one lashing on it.

I want… I want… I want him to lay his mark over the disgusting bruises I already have.

“Kayne. Please… I need you to reclaim me. Cover every bruise I have, every strike I have with your own.”

He draws back, a heavy frown creasing his forehead. “You’re still healing,” he says but I know it’s not the words he wants to say. He wants to say he’ll hurt me. But that’s what I want. What I need from him.

“No,” I say desperately. “I don’t want to heal from the wounds that he left on me. I won’t ever forget them. I won’t ever forget him. Kayne, I need to forget him. I need you to replace every part of me that he hurt with your own hand. Please.”

I’m pleading for my life now.

“Please don’t make me remember him. I won’t ever be free if I heal physically from the scars he gave me. Don’t let that happen to me, Kayne.”

I’m asking the man I love to hurt me over the wounds I already have because it seems like the only way I can be released from that place of hell. Only Kayne can do that for me.

Standing there naked, vulnerable I realize how new our relationship is. This is not the first time I’ve had this thought.

Something changed inside him. That moment when Roger was throwing me around with punches or whipping me, something changed. As I look at him now, I see it more clearly. Unreachable coldness.

“Do you love me, Kayne?” I ask, my voice small as I tremble with trepidation. What if his feelings for me changed? What if after the business with Roger he no longer wants me. What if he doesn’t want to marry me?

“I know our whole relationship is built on one catastrophic event after an even bigger catastrophic event. Is your attraction to me based on… on adrenaline and not actual feelings?” By the time I utter the last word I’m drained. I’ve never been more scared before and I’m saying that after everything I experienced not days ago. Without Kayne’s love, I am nothing.

“You don’t love me anymore. If you did, you would have come to me.” My voice is laced with heartache. Because it’s true. Kayne would never have stayed away from me if his feelings hadn’t changed.

~~~***~~~

Kayne

I take her in my arms and do nothing but hold her. She’s thinner, weaker but she doesn’t wince in pain as I envelop her against my chest.

I thread my hand into her long soft tresses. Her scent, the one I’ve put down to memory now flutters in full bloom over me like the softness of petals.

I pull her head back. I remember Thompson doing the same to her and it makes my blood boil. The dungeon he had kept us in had been beneath a house in a suburb in New York. At least a thirty-minute drive away from my apartment building. Hidden in plain sight which was why Thompson had been cocky about not getting caught.

I want to release her and move as far away from her as possible. To the other end of the earth where I can’t drown her in my darkness because of the way I want to touch her.

But I can’t live without her. That means I have to push aside my true beast. Something I will do for her without hesitation.

The first time I touched her, really touched her I put her in nipple clamps and took a crop to her ass right here in this very room. I was harsh because she could never belong to me. I was rough because I wanted to frighten her away.

Instead, she offered me her sweet, sweet wetness. And the absolute fucking bastard that I am I took her virgin ass. I penetrated her innocent, tight, pure, and perfect little hole and I penetrated her with my huge cock.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

---