Page 12 of Pretty Stolen Dolls

There it is again. His stare drops to my chest and I look down to the spot he keeps gawking at. My mouth drops open and then closes as my skin burns on the edge of mortification. A button has come open and sweat glistens on my cleavage all out there for everyone to see. Fumbling with my jacket, I pull it closed over my shirt and risk overheating.

A smile plays at one corner his lips and he gives a slight shake of his head before he grows serious again. “He doesn’t come back. It’s just a guy,” Dillon concludes, bringing his eyes to my face.

Just a guy my ass. Benny isn’t just a guy—he’s a monster.

A defeated huff leaves me. Dillon’s right. We will need more than the evidence on the footage. Tapping the tech guy on the shoulder and gesturing with a pointed finger at the screen, I tell him, “Send these over to the precinct. It’s evidence.”

I leave Dillon and the man alone, eagerly escaping the suffocating room that reminds me all too much of a prison I lived in.

I’m coming for you, Benny.

“How was your day, babe?”

I drop my gun and badge on the table beside my purse and follow my nose into the kitchen where Bo is standing at the stove.

“Fine,” I say with a sigh and pat his back as I peek into the skillet. “Hamburger steak, mmm.” If he didn’t cook for me, I would have starved to death a long time ago.

He chuckles and kisses the top of my head. “You look like hell today. So glad you came home. Are you sure everything is fine?” His brows lift in question.

“Just what I want to hear from the man who claims to love me,” I tease, stealing a piece of celery from the bowl of salad he’s prepared.

“I don’t just claim it, baby. I’ll show you it too, later.” He winks and I internally sigh. He truly is a good man.

My eyes drag over his handsome face, taking in his sweet features. He doesn’t have much facial hair, but what he does have matches his dark blonde, naturally shaggy hair he now keeps short because of me. The first night we slept together, when he cuddled into me from behind in the dark room and the strands tickled over my skin, I became hostage to a night terror ofhim—only I wasn’t sleeping. I fought back, knocking Bo to the floor and leaving a scar above his right eye from a punch I threw while wearing the ring he had gifted me earlier that day. I was a mess back then, still am now, but he adores me. I feel it in his touch, when he gazes at me with those crystal blue eyes, and the way his smile lights up every room I darken. We truly do match—his good-naturedness with my chipped shoulder. The universe made sure we evened things out.

“Actually,” I tell him with a huff as I go on the hunt for plates, “it was terrible. Missing person. Alena Stevens. Fourteen.”

Taken from the mall byhim.

He turns off the stove, but doesn’t say anything, and I sense the shift in his mood. Bo hates my obsession with finding Macy. He knows I treat each and every case like a lead to find her, and this one is no different. Telling him anything about the case is frowned upon, but if I didn’t have him to vent to, I’d silently go insane.

“Try not to get sucked in, babe. You tend to lose too much weight and not sleep enough. I like my girl on the curvy side,” he says with a forced grin. He always tries to make light of my fucked up obsessions.

“Well, I’m starving, so your curvy girl isn’t changing any time soon.”

This time, I earn myself a genuine grin from the good looking man.

“Good. I like you just the way you are.”

And he did. I was fairly attractive, I suppose. The mirror showed me I’d blossomed into an appealing woman during those years I was locked away being used and abused by Benny. My dark locks complimented my pale complexion and my hazel eyes that mirrored Macy’s were vibrant but jaded. My figure was only now beginning to have curves that showed I was a woman. It took years for Bo to put meat on my fragile bones and I liked the fuller hips I now owned. They flattered my modest C cup and rounded ass.

I guess there’s a reason Bo is in love with me—and it can’t be my delightful personality.

But you don’t love him.

I wake to lips sucking on my nipple and my heart jackknifes through my chest. For a split second, I’m back in my cell. I’m seventeen and he’s taking me for the first time. It isn’t until I thread my fingers into his hair that I realize I’m latching onto short, stick-straight hair—not curly, thick hair. My tense body tightens for a different reason as I embrace the feeling of his hot tongue circling and sucking.

“It’s me, babe,” he whispers. “It’s just me.”

Bo.

Sex isn’t something I ever thought I’d want after Benny. I didn’t like the way my body betrayed me with him, but Bo took things slow and taught me how to be in control of what I do and whom I share myself with. Sex is good with Bo. He’s a gentle lover, but there’s this demon lurking inside me, tainted by Benny’s torture, that wants more—needs more.

“I love you. It’s just me,” he murmurs against my flesh as he trails kisses over the globe of my breast to my abdomen. “Don’t ever forget that, babe.”

I won’t. I can’t. There are many reasons why I hate myself and him loving me is one of them.

I don’t deserve him.

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