Page 63 of Dark OZ

“Yeah.” His normal, carefree smile was gone, replaced by a grim line—my past destroying even that.

I fell back, pulling a pillow over my face and willing Dorothy’s scent to suffocate me. It didn’t work. It just reminded me that someone was still fighting, and I’d be proving I was a coward if I didn’t fight with her. “I’ve spent years trying to convince myself that they’re gone.” I threw the pillow at the wall. A picture of sailboats clattered to the floor with it. “Even if one of them managed to make it through that meat grinder alive, what would be left of the girl I knew? Fucking look at me, and I didn’t go through half of what those women experience.”

“If you don’t face your nightmares, then you’ll never banish them.”

“Maybe.” Steam coiled through the open door, prowling over the ground. “But then what? What do I have left if you strip me of my nightmares?”

“You have her,” Crowe insisted. “You have us.”

Chapter 29

Isankdeeperintothe soapy water, training my ears on the conversation beyond the door. Crowe’s voice was low. In muffled tones, he talked Danny out of the emotional spiral he was going down. From the sounds, of it Crowe hadn’t known the truth of his childhood. Which meant Danny chose to share that information with me—when he hadn’t even trusted it with his boys. It made my chest squeeze with warmth and in equal parts, flip with unease.

I slid below the water and internally sighed as the heat enveloped me. I’d been seeking sanctuary underwater for as long as I could remember. When Em’s abuse and her goons were too much, there was always one place I could escape. The silence of being submerged was the only time I could feel truly alone. Closing off my senses quieted my thoughts, giving me peace and the ability to think clearly.

Danny’s story rolled around my head. Had I ever met one of his sisters? Seen their matching green eyes peer through chainlink, judging me as I walked by with the illusion of freedom. There was no way to know. Thousands of similarly heart-breaking stories walked over that barren earth. It explained his immediate hostility towards me. If he’d thought that I had anything to do with the inner workings of The Farm, then I would have hated me too.

The night we met, when I told Danny my name, I saw the way his eyes had chilled with blind rage. That version of Danny didn’t scare me. I knew how to handle that creature. It was the gentle version that watched me while I slept? The display of vulnerability made me feel like I was flayed open.Thatman terrified me.

Two strong hands wrapped under my shoulders and heaved me out of the bath. I jolted in surprise, inhaling a bit of water in the process and flailing my arms and legs in all directions.

“Holy fuck, Dorothy!” I blinked up at Danny. “I did not go through all of the last week just to see you drowning at the bottom of a tub.”

“Don’t call me Dorothy,” I snapped.

“That’s hardly the issue here.”

“I wasn’t drowning.” I shot him a furious glare, but it was hard to be angry with him when he looked so concerned. “I like laying under the water. It helps me think, and my mind is still all fuzzy from the drugs.”

“I thought you’d passed out again.” He pressed my head to his chest, banding his arms around me like he was afraid I might vanish if he slipped even an inch. The fierce pounding of his heart was deafening. My half-sitting, half-laying, naked form soaked through his black shirt and briefs.

“Well, I hadn’t.” I pried his caveman-like grip from around my waist. Deciding that there was no point in modesty anymore, I stood up…and immediately slipped on the massive puddle of water. I landed hard on my ass and cursed the tile. Not pausing to let Danny come to my rescue, I climbed back into the tub.

“I don’t think baths are a good idea right now.” He scowled at the water. “What if—”

I cut off his pointless warning, “I’m not wasting a perfectly warm bath when it’s right here. If you’re so worried, then climb in.” It was an impulsive comment. The words left my lips before I’d fully realized what I was suggesting. There was something about Danny that made me feel like I was always arming up for a fight.

Danny’s eyebrows sky-rocketed. “You want me to get in the bathtub with you?”

I laughed and flicked a long stream of water at him. Fuck it. I’d come this far already. What did it matter if we went straight into the deep end? “You’re already soaked. I don’t know what you’re afraid of.”

Danny turned to the door. Crowe wouldn’t be gone for long. Was he worried what the others might think if they found him in a bathtub with me? Did I care? Crowe had made it pretty clear that he had no issues in sharing me, and it was just a bath.

He gave a little nod and, with one hand, peeled his shirt over his head.

I sucked in a tiny breath. Apparently, my ability to breathe was stripped along with his shirt. For all the times that I’ve been nude around them, the boys had always been infuriatingly clothed. I could sense the power behind each of their frames. Every time I came in contact with one of them, it was like bouncing off of a brick wall. During our long motorcycle trip to Gorba’s, I had plenty of time to memorize the feel of Danny’s muscles. Sure, I was gripping them out of sheer panic, but I spent enough time clinging to him to know that I’d like this view.

Seeing it was so much better than anything I’d imagined. The man was beautiful, a true work of art. I tracked my eyes along the planes of his chest at the inked masterpiece stretching across the broad expanse of muscle.

A massive roaring lion framed by flowers—daffodils, dahlias, daisies, and dandelions. The jaws of the beast stretched wide, his mane draping over Danny’s rolling abdominals all the way down to where it disappeared beneath the the band of his briefs.

“Why the lion?”

“It’s a long story. The short version is that Nick’s family called me Leone, lion. The name started as a joke, but then I decided to claim it. Or maybe I was trying to fool myself into thinking I was something I wasn’t. I mean, who ever heard of a cowardly lion? It sounds like something right off the pages of a children’s book.”

“Dandy, youarea walking contradiction, but you’re no coward.”

“That almost sounded like a compliment.” Danny snared my eye contact, a challenge behind his smirk. “Almost.” He slid his shorts down, daring me to drop his gaze. He fucking knew I wanted to. My mouth had been watering ever since I spotted the outline of his erection straining against the cotton of his briefs, the rosy head peeking out from the top of the elastic. It was impossible to miss, but not as impossible as keeping the image of my hand wrapping around— “Don’t keep looking at me like that, Firecracker.”

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