Fear For Me: A Novel of the Bayou Butcher(51)

Carefully, he bent and lowered her onto the bed. Her stitches looked dry, but she was so pale. “Did you hit your head?” He stared into her eyes. Her pupils looked normal but—

“Don’t call the doctor,” she said softly. “I just overdid it a bit.” She swallowed. “I should have gotten you to help me sooner.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Her lashes lowered, even as a ghost of a smile lifted her lips. “Because I was naked, and usually when one of us is naked around the other, help isn’t what happens.”

His heart slammed into his chest. “You’re hurt. I could have controlled myself.” Was that what she believed? That he’d only think of himself when she was hurt?

Yes, he wanted her twenty-four-f*cking-seven, but he’d rein in that need. For her.

He was realizing he’d do just about anything for her.

“I wasn’t worried about your control.” Her lashes lifted. The blue of her eyes was still too dulled. He wanted the spark—the life—back. “I was worried about my own.”

They’d lost the towel during the trip back to the bed. With fingers that weren’t nearly as steady as Anthony would have liked, he grabbed for the covers and pulled them over her body.

A body that haunted his dreams. “You…” He cleared his throat. “You made it clear you didn’t want anything happening between us.”

Crystal clear.

“Maybe I was lying.” Her voice was soft. Not slurred, or he’d have gotten the doc on the phone.

Lying? That whispered confession drove right through him. Anthony eased into the bed beside her. He slid his arm under her head and pulled her against him. She still fit him so perfectly. Better than anyone else ever had.

Because no one else seemed made for him. “I lie sometimes, too,” he confessed.

“Tell me your lies.”

She was awake, talking, in his arms. He’d tell her anything. “Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

He felt her start of surprise.

“Then why go?” Lauren asked.

A hard question. He’d been scared. He’d needed her too much. He’d worried she needed what he couldn’t give her. Instead of saying all that, he figured he should go back. Start at the beginning. His nightmare. “You never asked me about my family.”

Her head pressed down onto his shoulder. “Not a lot of time for family talk during all the sex fests.”

They’d been some pretty awesome sex fests. As soon as she was better, he’d be on her again.

His cock was swollen and hard right then with need for her, but he was holding back. He’d be what she needed tonight.

“When my parents were happy, when they were getting along, you could almost see the love between them. It was so strong.” During those times, things had been good. Close to perfect. “But when they weren’t happy…” Those times when his dad’s anger had burst free… “I didn’t think anything could be closer to hell.”

He’d been wrong about that, though. When Lauren had vanished, he’d been given a fast trip to hell.

“My dad would get jealous. If my mom talked to another guy, if she was even five minutes late arriving home, he’d swear she was cheating on him.”

Lauren was silent in his arms.

“She was his obsession.” That was what it had been. He realized it now. It wasn’t love. It was an obsession.

“This story doesn’t end well, does it?” she whispered.

Stories like his never did. “I don’t know if she’d been cheating on him all along—if his worries were real—or if the jealousy actually drove her to another man.” He’d been thirteen at the time, and too grief stricken to focus on the whys. “But when my father found out she was going to leave him, he snapped.”

Lauren was silent. Her breath came in fast puffs that hit lightly over his skin.

“He wasn’t going to let her go. If he couldn’t have her, no one else would.”

He’d walked home from school and found a bloodbath. His mother, dead. A shotgun blast to the chest. After he’d killed her, his father had put the shotgun under his own chin and pulled the trigger.

“I’m so sorry, Anthony.”

He wasn’t telling the story for pity.

“My mom loved me,” he said with painful pride. His father might have been a twisted SOB, but his mother had always cared about him. Always. “When the police searched her car, they found bags packed. One for her. One for me.” She’d planned to get them both away.

Only the police believed that his father had come home and found her packing.

“He couldn’t let her go, and in the end, he wound up being the most dangerous thing in her life.” It hadn’t started that way, though. He’d seen the wedding pictures. Seen the happy smiles. He did remember them being happy. There had been fun birthday parties, family dinners at Christmas.

But obsessions could twist over time. Become so very deadly.

“I’m sorry you found them.” Her voice was low. Hesitant. “No child should ever see that.”

There were plenty of things children should never see. “You asked me why I left you.” He realized his fingers were making light circles on her palm. He couldn’t stop. With her, that had always been his problem. Can’t stop. Need too much. “I wanted you, so damn badly, all the time.”