When I'm Gone (Rosemary Beach #11)(30)

She blinked her eyes several times, and her gaze cleared up as she did what I asked. She was back with me. The demons tormenting her were once again pushed away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

“No. Never be sorry. Nothing is your fault. With me, you never have to apologize,” I said.

Her shoulders sank in defeat, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. I wasn’t letting her do that. Not now. Not after she’d given me so much, entrusted me with so much.

“Can I just hold you? Nothing more. Just let me hold you.” It was supposed to be a question, but it had turned into pleading.

She nodded and stepped toward me. I gathered her into my arms and wrapped them around her. Slowly, her arms slid around my waist, and she held on to me just as fiercely.

We didn’t speak or move. We just stood there like that, holding each other for several minutes. I reassured myself that she was here and she was going to be OK. I would be there right beside her through all of this. Whatever it was.

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then pressed my cheek against the silky locks. The cinnamon sweet cream smell that I loved engulfed me, and I closed my eyes, wishing I could wipe away every bad thing that had happened to her.

“I hate him. I don’t know who he is, but I loathe him with every fiber of my being,” I whispered against her hair.

She tensed in my arms for a moment, and then her body relaxed as her arms tightened around me as if she was seeking safety and comfort from me. I could give her that. Even if she wasn’t ready for me to give her other things, I could give her peace.

“It’s late. You need to go to bed,” I told her, wanting nothing more than to crawl into that bed with her. Even if it was just to sleep.

“Will . . . will you stay here tonight?” she asked against my chest.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

She pulled back from me, and I let her go. She walked over to the bed, pulled back the covers, and climbed under them. Then she patted the spot beside her. “Sleep here. Beside me.”

Her wish was my command. I lay down beside her but stayed on top of the covers. I was fully clothed, so I didn’t need covers anyway. Holding out my arm, I looked at her curled up on her side, watching me. “Come here,” I said, and she immediately moved to tuck herself into the crook of my arm and shoulder. I wrapped my arm around her and held her.

Staring at the ceiling, I wondered how I would go back home on Sunday morning. Leaving her wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t like thinking of her here alone.

The need to protect her had grown into something fierce and possessive inside of me. I thought of her all the time, and all I could think was that I wanted her safe. I wanted her with me. I didn’t want anyone else touching her or comforting her. Just me.

I was supposed to fix her problems. I was the one who should be holding her when she cried. It drove me crazy to think of anyone else doing something for her that I should be doing.

This girl was making me crazy. I felt out of my depth with her. I didn’t know why I had this insane urge to wrap her up and run off with her. It couldn’t be healthy. I had always been protective of Harlow and my mother. But other than those two, no one else was that important to me.

Until now. And this was a league all its own.

Why her? Why was she affecting me like this? I had seen hot bodies before and gorgeous smiles. It was more than her outward appearance. Beautiful women only interested me for one thing. Reese had reached something else inside of me and squeezed it tight, from the moment I ran into the room and found her sitting on the floor surrounded by broken glass.

I had actually been pissed at the mirror for hurting her. Who gets f*cking mad at an object?

“Mase?” her soft voice said against my chest.

The blood in my veins warmed and sped up with the sound of my name on her lips. Or at least, it felt like it. My whole body reacted to her. “Yes,” I replied, gently wrapping a silky lock of her hair around my finger.

“It was my stepfather,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

Everything in my chest felt like it was twisting into knots. It hurt to breathe. Holy f*ck, it hurt so bad. I had to force oxygen into my lungs as the reality of what she had just admitted to me settled in. Rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced crashed through me, and I wanted to murder another human being for the first time in my life. No, I wanted to torture him slowly first. Listen to him scream in agony. Then I wanted to watch him die.

“Mase?” Reese’s voice called my name again, and I inhaled sharply, putting the revenge and hate for a man I didn’t know to the side. My girl needed me now. She didn’t need me losing my shit over this. She’d trusted me with it.

“Yes, baby,” I replied.

“I hate him, too.”

Those four words just about undid me. “I’m going to wash it all away. I swear to God, I am, Reese. One day, all you will see or remember is me and what we feel like together. I swear.”

She turned her head and kissed my chest, then snuggled closer to me. “I believe you.”

Reese

It took me a few seconds to awaken fully and remember that I wasn’t alone in my apartment. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that I was alone in bed. I could feel Mase’s absence. His warmth was gone.

But he was in the other room. The smell of coffee filled the small apartment. And Mase’s voice, although he was talking quietly, drifted through the closed door.