Make Me (Broke and Beautiful #3)(56)

“Any way you want. As soon as you let me explain everything.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

She went up on her toes and got in his face. “No—”

Russell seized her wrists and pulled them behind her back, wrenching a gasp free from her mouth. The fight went out of her instantly. She sagged against him, as if her bones had liquefied, her body held up between his grip and muscular body. It shocked even her how swiftly every nuance of her being responded to the show of authority. Blood whizzed through her veins, rejoicing, anticipating an outlet for pent-up energy and tension she hadn’t been aware of holding hostage.

Russell’s breath was labored, gaze unfocused. “I’m trying to control this thing, angel. You have to help me.” Tortured eyes fell to her parted mouth. “Show me where I hurt you, so I’ll stop.”

Her fingers twitched behind her back with the need to indicate the center of her chest. “What do you mean?”

“The bruises.” He released Abby’s hands, stacking his own atop his head, falling back against the door. “Show me how bad I am for you, as if I didn’t already know. As if I don’t think about it every hour of the day.”

“Bruises,” she whispered, a dull pain forming in her side. “How . . . who told you—” Her mouth snapped shut at the memory of Mitchell’s shrewd, seemingly innocuous glance at her wrists the morning after they’d spent the night at the beach.

“The lawyer said you were upset. He asked me if I bruise up girls. I’ve been sick for days, Abby. So f*cking sick.”

Her knees almost buckled under the weight of relief. It all made sense now. Why he’d left without saying good-bye. Why he’d stayed away. Her big protector thought he’d hurt her. He’d been put through five days of torture for no reason. They both had.

“Russell.” She smoothed her hands up the sides of his face. “You didn’t hurt me. Or, when you did, it changed into something that felt good.” Steam drifted between them, obscuring his face, so she moved closer. “I was coming back down to the beach so we could do it all again.”

His long exhale of breath shifted the steam. “Is that true? You weren’t upset?” He dropped his hands to his sides, and she could feel the effort he put into not reaching for her. “I was so rough for your first time . . . there are nail marks all over my back. I don’t even remember your leaving them.”

It turned her on hearing that. Made her feel possessive in a new, momentous way. “We left marks on each other, then.” She swiped her rapidly dampening hair back from her face. “Is it wrong that I like that?”

“I don’t know,” he grated. “But I’m making a promise to you, Abby. If you give me a chance, we’ll find out together. Find out everything about these things I feel and make sure they aren’t bad for you.”

“For us. Bad for us.” She licked the condensation from her lips. “And I feel them, too, in a different way. In . . . reverse.” Her voice sounded fainter in the drumming of her pulse. It was coming. They were going to be together again, and she could barely breathe around the eagerness. Praying he wouldn’t protest or insist they talk more, Abby went up on her toes and lifted Russell’s shirt over his head, dropping it to the floor. Oh boy. Had he gotten bigger, more cut? The heat inside the bathroom had caused him to perspire, making his rising and falling chest glow with masculine sweat. “Will you take a shower with me?”

His Adam’s apple rose and dropped. “There’s more to talk about.”

No. She wasn’t having that. Anticipation pumped too brightly, consuming her from the middle and radiating out. Keeping her gaze locked with Russell’s fevered one, she unzipped his jeans and shoved them down, leaving him in a pair of white boxer briefs. She couldn’t help perusing the body she’d revealed. The sweat dripping down his stomach, absorbing into the hem of his underwear, made her tongue jealous. “I have this fantasy where you . . .”

“What?” he prompted in a harsh voice.

“You wash me in the shower.”





Chapter 18



UNTIL NOW, HE’D been attempting to keep his attention glued above Abby’s neck, but with the uttering of those words, Russell broke. He groaned and swayed toward her, preying on her breasts with eyes starved for the sight of her flesh. She’d known—known – he’d have the corresponding desire. It was there in her knowing expression, the way she lowered her chin and regarded him through long eyelashes. Yeah, she’d known the act of caring for her would be the ultimate temptation. Caring for his Abby. Doing for her.

His cock stretched longer inside the damp boxer briefs, feeling strangled. He bent down and ripped a condom from his pants pocket, impatience spurring him toward Abby and f*ck, somehow the way she backed away with that . . . obedient expression made him feel like a king. Her king. And her king was feeling thick below the waist and ready to blow.

“The way you’re looking at me is a f*cking hazard, Abby.”

“Should I stop?”

Christ, with every word, every movement? she handed him more and more control. After a week of solitary confinement, he was sprinting past the prison walls. Not going back. I can’t go back. “I’ll tell you if I want you to stop.”