You Were Mine (Rosemary Beach #9)(63)

Just before he reached me, I decided that whatever his dog did to me would be better than this. So I ran.

He cackled with laughter behind me, but I didn’t let it slow me down. He didn’t think I’d go out the back door. How wrong he was. I would face the pits of hell to get away from him.

But the door was bolted. I needed the key to unbolt it. No. No.

His hands grabbed my waist and pulled me back to feel his hardness pressing against me. The sour taste of vomit burned the back of my throat as I jerked away from him. “NO!” I yelled.

His hands moved around and grabbed my breasts and squeezed painfully. “Stupid whore. This is all you’re good for. Couldn’t graduate from high school because you were too damn stupid. But this body is meant to make men happy. Accept that, bitch.”

The tears ran down my face. I hadn’t been able to stop them. He knew the words to hurt me. “NO!” I cried out again, but this time the pain was there in my voice. It cracked.

“Fight me, Reese. I like it when you fight me,” he hissed in my ear.

How could my mother stay married to this man? Was my father worse than this? She’d never married him. She never told me about him. I didn’t even know his name. But no one could be worse than this awful man.

I couldn’t do this again. I was done being scared. Either he would beat me until he killed me or he would kick me out. I had feared both for so long. Mother had told me once that all that men would do in this world was think about sex when they looked at me. I would be used by men my whole life. She constantly told me to leave.

Today, I was ready. I only had eight hundred and fifty-five dollars saved up, but I could get a bus ticket to the other side of the country and get a job. If I got out of this house alive, that’s what I was doing.

Marco’s hands slipped down the front of my shorts and I bucked against him, screaming. I didn’t want his hand there. “Let me go!” I yelled loudly enough for the neighbors to hear.

He pulled his hand out and jerked me around by my arm so hard it popped. Then he slammed me against the door. His hand punched my face with a loud crack. My vision blurred and I felt my knees go weak. “Shut up, bitch, and take it.”

His hands grabbed my shirt and jerked it up, then tugged my bra down. I sobbed, because I couldn’t stop the horror. It was coming, and I couldn’t stop him.

“Get away from my husband, you whore, and leave my house! I don’t want to ever see your face again!” My mother’s voice stopped Marco and he moved his hands off my breasts. I jerked my shirt back down.

My face was burning from the punch, and I tasted blood on my lip as the stinging cut under my tongue began to swell.

“OUT, YOU STUPID, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING WHORE!” my mother screamed.

That moment changed everything.

Mase

Two years later . . .

Fucking hell. What was that noise? I peeled my eyes open as sleep slowly faded away from my brain, and I was able to register what had woken me up.

A vacuum? And . . . singing? What the f*ck?

I rubbed my eyes and groaned in frustration as the noise got louder. I was sure now it was a vacuum. And it sounded like a really bad version of Miranda Lambert’s “Gunpowder & Lead.”

My phone said it was only eight. I had been asleep for two hours. After thirty hours straight with no sleep, I was being awakened by bad singing and a motherf*cking vacuum?

As she sang the first two lines of the chorus, I winced. She was getting louder as she sang. And it was seriously off-key. That was a good song she was butchering. Didn’t the woman know you didn’t come in people’s houses at eight in the f*cking morning and sing at the top of your lungs?

I was never going to get back to sleep with this racket.

Nannette must have hired an idiot to clean her f*cking house. But then, knowing Nannette, she was pissed, because I was here and there was nothing she could do about it. She probably paid the woman to screech outside my bedroom door. Nannette didn’t own the house—our dad, Kiro, did. He’d told us that while she was in Paris I could stay in the house and spend some time with our other sister, Harlow.

This must be the bitch’s way of getting me back for staying at her place.

Now she was singing the chorus over and over again at the top of her lungs. God, this was like waking to a nightmare. This woman so needed to shut up. I had to get some sleep before I went to visit with Harlow and her family. She knew I was here, and she was so excited about my coming to visit. But this idiot was messing my sleep up very effectively.

I threw back the covers and stood up and headed for the door before I realized I was naked. My head was pounding from lack of sleep, and this was just making me more angry as I searched the room for the damn jeans I had taken off when I’d gotten here. My vision was blurred and the dark curtains were closed. Fuck it. I reached for the sheet and wrapped it around my waist and went for the door.

I swung it open just as she started singing the opening lines to another song. Dammit. This time she was murdering “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes against the light, my vision still blurry. Shit, did the woman not see me here?

After a few seconds, I finally was able to open my eyes in a squint to see a round little ass wiggling as she bent over. My eyes slowly opened completely as I took in the longest damn legs I’d ever seen. And holy f*cking hell, her ass. Was that a freckle or a birthmark under her left butt cheek?