Bang(67)

When we finally make it to his place, his silence remains as we walk into his loft. With my hand in his, he leads me back to his bedroom. Tossing my bags onto the floor, he sits me down on his bed and gently removes my sunglasses. His eyes look over my face, examining my swollen cheek and black eye. I flinch when he touches it, and he whispers a quick apology before reaffirming, “I’m serious, Nina. I want to kill him for doing this to you.”

“It’s not that bad,” I mumble as I drop my head.

“Have you f*ckin’ seen your face?! It’s pretty f*ckin’ bad!” He takes a moment and a few deep breaths before softening his voice, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to yell at you. Just . . . Why don’t you lie down? I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay.”

Declan leaves the room, and when he returns with an ice pack, he takes a seat next to me on the bed where I’m lying down and gently places it over the side of my face. Wincing at the contact, I close my eyes and place my hand over his as he holds it in place.

“Tell me what happened,” he whispers as he looks down at me.

“When I got home last night, he was there. I had told him that I was spending the afternoon with a friend, but he found out I was lying and delayed his flight until early this morning,” I explain, and when a few tears seep out and roll down my temples, I continue, “He was mad, and just . . .”

“Hit you?”

I nod, and he asks, “He’s done this before?”

When I nod again I see the muscles in his neck strain. Sitting up, I lean back against the headboard and begin to cry, telling him, “I’m so scared, Declan. If he ever found out about us, I don’t—”

“He won’t find out,” he jumps in.

“He could.”

“He won’t.”

“He’s not what people think.”

“How long has this been going on?” he asks.

“Shortly after we married. It didn’t start out so bad, but now . . .”

“Come here,” he says as he shifts to my side and drapes his arm around me, drawing me into his hold. He kisses the top of my head before saying, “I can’t let you go back to him.”

“I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Nina.”

“It’s not that simple. I’m terrified of what he’ll do because he’s capable of anything,” I tell him as the remaining tears roll down my face. “This black eye is minor compared to . . .”

“To what? Christ, Nina, it looks like someone beat the shit out of you with a f*cking bat. You have no idea what I want to do to that f*cker right now. Just thinking about him having his hands on you is paralyzing.”

The rage in his voice is unyielding, and his eyes are dilated in fury.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to see—”

“You? The real you?” He closes his eyes for a second, pinching the bridge of his nose, and then looks at me with sincerity. “Don’t ever hide from me. Not a single goddamn thing.”

I don’t respond, but he isn’t waiting for me to when he wraps his arm around my waist and shifts us down into the sheets. My eyes close as he drops delicate kisses on my battered cheek and over my eye. With his lips against my skin, he breathes his words, saying, “It kills me to know this about you.”

“I don’t want you to hurt for me.”

“I’ll always hurt for you. I want to hurt for you, to take it away from you so that I can bear it for the both of us,” he whispers and then seals his lips with mine in a passionate kiss. But he can’t take my pain away. Nobody can. Pike tries, but it never lasts longer than a brief moment. My pain is threaded within the fibers of my existence. Here to stay. A reminder that we all come in different forms of decrepit.

Declan drags his lips away from mine, saying, “Open your eyes.”

Blinking them open, I stare up into his green emeralds when he tells me, “Leave him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Leave him.”

“It’s not easy like that,” I say, needing him to understand that I can’t just walk away, but he moves past my words, telling me, “I don’t want easy. I want you.”

“I . . .”

“Tell me what you feel for me,” he says as he parts my legs and settles himself between my thighs.

“I don’t know if there’s a word for it, because it’s strong, but it can’t be love.”

“Why not?” he says, his cock growing harder with each word spoken.

“Because I’ve only known you a couple of months. It’s crazy to think about how much I already feel for you. I feel crazy for having the feelings I have for you.”

“Why?”

“Because I hardly know you.”

“You know me,” he states as he rocks his hips, pressing his erection into me.

“Do I?”

“I adore you. Do you need to know anything else?”

My breathing grows unsteady as he continues to grind himself against me.

“Open up to me. Tell me how you feel. Give me the words,” he insists.

“I don’t know,” I release on a staggered voice.

“You do. You’re just scared.”