Better When He's Brave (Welcome to the Point #3)(78)

“Is that the cop? Imagine how fun it will be for him to find you like this. Broken, ripped apart. Covered in filth and another man. I only wish I could be around to see his face. Conner will love that.”

I had to do something, and since fighting wasn’t getting me anywhere, I decided to stop. I let my arms fall to the floor next to his legs. I stopped kicking and jerking my legs and hips. I went stone still and lay under him like I was already a corpse. I saw triumph flash in his beady eyes and he pushed his grotesque mouth to my own again.

“I like it better when you fight, but this works too.” I forced myself not to move a single muscle as he loosened his hold around my throat and started to rub the edge of the blade along where I was sure my pulse was hammering. Before I could change my mind or evaluate the risk involved, I lifted my head up off the floor just a little bit like I was going to kiss him back and sank my teeth into his lip. I felt flesh rip, felt blood surge, but it was enough to once again throw him off balance so that I could wiggle out from underneath his bulk. The knife raked across my skin with a stinging burn as I got myself free, but I couldn’t stop to think about how bad the cut might be. Instead I ran for my purse and almost started crying on the spot when my fingers touched the chilly metal of the gun.

He was close again. I could feel him. So I released the safety and turned around already pulling the trigger without aiming. I fired and fired, each shot louder than the previous one. I fired until the clip was empty and my shoulder felt like it was dislocated from the recoil. The entire loft smelled like blood and gunpowder as Zero slumped over in a heap on the floor at my feet. I hadn’t hit him with all the rounds, but enough had made contact that he wasn’t a threat anymore. The knife now sat useless and covered in crimson on the floor next to his lax form.

I called 911 only to be informed that units were already on the way to my location due to reports of shots fired. I told the dispatcher there was a dead body on the scene and then Race and Brysen were suddenly there hustling me out of the apartment and asking me a million questions. No one heard me screaming, but they sure as hell heard the gun go off. Before I could even start to process what they were asking or the fact that I was bleeding and probably going into shock, the cranky detective was all in my face asking more questions, and all I could tell anyone was that I wanted Titus.

I just wanted my cop.

Speaking of, the bathroom door swung open and his big frame was suddenly filling the space. “Are you okay in here?”

Without my noticing it, the water had gone cold, and I was just sitting in the tub crying. I lifted my hands to rub at my cheeks and went to stand up.

“Yeah. I just needed a minute.” I was always fighting. Fighting someone, something, fighting myself. I wasn’t used to being the victim, to being weak and out of control.

I never got to my feet. Before I could stand up, his strong arms were around me and under me and he was cradling me to his chest. Soaking himself and the bathroom floor in the process. I didn’t argue. I just wrapped an arm around his thick neck and let him take me to his bed still dripping wet and teary-eyed.

He had obviously spent the time I was soaking cleaning up his bedroom. There wasn’t a stray shirt or sock in sight and the bed was made with obviously clean sheets and blankets. I rubbed my sore cheek against his pec and sighed against his heartbeat.

“I can’t believe how messy you are. I never would have guessed.”

He grunted and shifted me a little so he could pull the top blanket back and put me in the center of the bed. He stared down at me for a long moment before he started pulling his clothes off. That was a show that would make me millions if I charged other woman to watch it. Too bad I was greedy and wanted the flex and bend of all that hard muscle and tawny skin to be forever for my eyes only.

“The only person that ever sees it is me, so I guess I never really bothered to take very good care of the inside of the place. I’m not here a lot.”

Again it reminded me of the man himself. The only one who ever saw into the darkness where his heart actually lived was Titus. The beast was lonely, and I was the only one he had ever let inside the cage. It needed me. I just hoped he could still see that after I told him the last of my dirty secrets.

Once he was as naked as I was, he reached over, turned off the lights, and climbed into the bed next to me; even though it was early morning and the rest of the world was just starting to wake up, we were going to bed.

He curled an arm around me and drew me tightly to his chest. “It’s tomorrow.”

I knew he wanted to talk, but I wasn’t ready for it yet. “It’ll still be tomorrow when we wake up. Let’s just rest for a minute.” I needed it. Oblivion had never sounded so nice.

I felt his lips brush across the top of my head and his palm skimmed over the battered and raw surface of the arm I wrapped around him.

“Okay. We can rest. By the way, I’m proud of you. You’re one hell of a fighter, Reeve.”

I could only pray he felt that way when I opened my eyes and told him my tale. Between my own emotions being drained and stripped to nothing and his warmth and the security of finally being in his arms after my nightmare, I couldn’t keep my eyelids open anymore. Sleep and a tiny reprieve was one thing I wasn’t going to fight against.

I WAS HAVING THE most amazing dream. It was full of questing hands. Tender kisses. The brush of soft hair against my skin. My name was whispered between lips that I loved and I had never been in a more secure or happy place.