Page 106 of Linger

I froze two steps away, clutching the towel and clothes tightly as my mind raced.

With a reserved sigh, Lachlan looked over his shoulder and explained, “You belong to me now, which means no other man touches or undresses you—doctors included.” He faced the nightstand again, his voice bored when he added, “I had them walk me through what needed to be done before bringing you here.”

“You stitched my back,” I said, the words heavily laced with doubt.

“Among other things.”

Right...the brand.

Still, I turned for the bathroom again. Shutting and locking the door behind me before starting the ridiculously painful and exhausting process of simply dressing myself.

Once I’d finished and managed to somewhat catch my breath again, I carefully opened the door. A whisper of fear flooding my veins as if everything might’ve changed in the short time I’d been in there.

As if I’d walk out to a neon mask deciding he wanted to kill me all over again.

But Lachlan was standing by the bed. Arms folded over his broad chest. Head slanted in that same menacing way he seemed to always do that was just as chilling without the mask.

“So, you’re done with the mask now?” I asked as I stopped just inside the bedroom. When Lachlan’s icy stare shifted pointedly to the bed, I tried not to show my defeat or relief as I cleared the rest of the distance and carefully climbed onto it. Because I wanted to lay down so damn bad. I wanted to close my eyes and give in to the exhaustion and pain for a few hours.

I just hated doing anything he wanted.

Pausing when the wolfhound’s massive head snapped up before flopping over again, I watched the dog for a few more seconds to make sure it wouldn’t move before lowering myself to the mattress.

“You’ve already seen my face,” Lachlan said once I was settled, finally answering. “And the dog won’t hurt you.”

I nodded against my arms as I folded them under my head. “What’s his name?”

“Her,” he corrected gently as he came to stand on the opposite side of the bed. “When I can trust you, I’ll tell you.”

My eyebrows drew together, but I didn’t ask. I just closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at him standing so close and like this.

Our position in the bathroom had been far more intimate than our current one, but this was worse. Because, even though sexual acts often happened on beds, beds meant so much more to Diggs and me. Or, at least, they’d meant more to me.

My bed had always been where Diggs found me. Wrapping me up in his arms and making me feel things I’d had no right feeling. And that bone-weary exhaustion from little sleep and countless body-numbing orgasms was something I’d grown so accustomed to because of him.

Right then, on my borrowed bed, drowning in a different kind of exhaustion, there was only a monster staring back at me. Reaching for me. Grasping the bottom of my shirt and gently easing it up. And with every inch of skin he exposed, my heart didn’t rise toward my throat, it sank deeper into the pit in my stomach.

At the first touch of Lachlan’s fingers on my back, I jerked. From the pain...from the humiliation of letting Mike’s murderer this close to me...from the guilt that sliced through me deeper than Higgins’ knife had because this wasn’t the man my soul longed for.

“She’s a good dog and she’s smart,” Lachlan began, rough voice holding a hint of affection for the giant beast beside me. “She just has a bad habit of listening to commands from anyone who knows her name.” When I didn’t respond, he assumed, “You’re afraid of dogs.”

My eyelids flew open at the asinine assumption that had my heartstrings twisting and pulling as a memory flared.

“First day of school, you told Lex you wanted to get a dog to protect you,” Diggs had said outside the school the morning before my life fell apart all over again. “Already told you I’m a bloodhound. I’ll protect you better than anything else could.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked Lachlan, a mixture of accusation and sorrow driving the words.

“You screamed the first time you saw her.”

“Because I saw you,” I argued fiercely. “Because I was in shock that you were there and sure I was imagining things. And then a horse was nudging my chest.”

I was so caught off guard at the rasping laugh that scraped up Lachlan’s throat that I just laid there, unmoving, as he returned to working on my back.

“I’m a shameless, evil monster, as you say, because I was born into a world of more of the same,” he said a moment later. “If you don’t adapt to your world, it’ll destroy you. And I have no intention of letting anything destroy me other than myself.”

“No.” My head shook against my arms, my eyelids squeezing tight as if I might be able to block out the flashes of the night I’d first encountered Lachlan and the KSG. “No, you and your stupid neon gang are ruthless and kill innocent people for no reason. For fun. You’re vicious.”

“Innocent people?” he challenged darkly, his fingers trailing along the raised mark he’d branded into me. “Thought you learned the other night that the boyfriend you’ve spent so long grieving over was far from innocent for a mafia family to call up his name.”

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