Craving (Steel Brothers Saga #1)(69)

I smiled against the comforter.

Her hands, so good, so right, so perfec—

The boy screamed.

A thick finger breached his behind. He was being torn in half. Ripped apart. Thousands of needles forced themselves into him. Nothing could ever hurt so much. He screamed in agony.

“Stop that! You’re hurting me! Mama! Daddy! Help me! Please!”

This wasn’t normal. People didn’t do these things. Not to kids… Not to…

His blood curdled as a high-pitched screech ripped from his throat. More pain. Shards of jagged glass tore into him, stretching him, breaking him.

“That’s it, boy. Take it all.”

The boy would never recover. He would die right now. This was the end of his short life. The end…

“Talon!”

I was on my knees, my hands clamped over my ears. The noise. So much noise. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! A blood-chilling screech. Malignant and wretched.

“Talon!”

Through the noise, a sweet voice called my name. Talon. Far away, someone called…

God, please, the noise. Make it stop make it stop make it stop.

“Talon!”

The noise stopped. I looked at Jade. She was beautiful. So beautiful. But fear, terror, laced her steely eyes.

“My God, what’s wrong?”

And I knew. The deafening noise had been coming from me, my voice. What had happened? I looked at her. So beautiful, so innocent. She had been taking such good care of me, massaging my thighs, my lower back, my ass, and then dipping…

She had touched me there—on my anus.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Cannot go there. Will not go there.

“Talon, let me help you. Tell me what’s wrong.”

I stood. My cock hung flaccid. I had been so looking forward to making love with her again. Yes, making love. Not just fucking.

But this would never work. I put on my jeans and boxers. Then I picked up her dress and handed it to her. “Leave,” I said.

She arched her eyebrows, and her beautiful lips formed an O. “Leave? I don’t understand.”

“You know what the word means.” I looked away.

She walked to me, still naked, holding her dress. She cupped my cheek and forced me to gaze into her eyes. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you. Please, let me help you.”

How I wanted to believe her. How I wanted to grab her in my arms, hold her against me until the last monster disappeared into the fog of the night. Could I try? Could I risk everything and keep her with me?

I shook my head. “You need to leave. Now.”

“I don’t understand. Please. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay and help you.”

I gritted my teeth. “No. Leave.”

She bit her lip, and two tears, one from each eye, rivered down her cheeks.

I had never loathed myself more.

She put her sundress over her head and covered her shapely body. She sniffed and said, “All right, Talon. I will leave. But tomorrow, we’re going to talk about this. You can’t push me away. I won’t let you.”

I didn’t want to push her away. All I wanted was her. She was all I had ever wanted. I had never wanted anything until I met her. But I had to push her away. I had to protect her from the horror that was my life.

I grabbed her arm. “You’re not understanding me.”

“Talon, I have never understood you. But right now, you clearly need me to leave, so I want to leave. But we will talk tomorrow.”

Except that we wouldn’t talk tomorrow. We wouldn’t talk tomorrow or any other day.

“When I say leave, I’m not talking about leaving for now. I want you out of this house.”

Sadness shone in her beautiful eyes. “You can’t mean that.”

“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

“When I tried to leave before, you wanted me to stay.”

Hell, I wanted her to stay now. But what happened tonight had been like a freight train running me over, crushing me into dust, and forcing reality into me. I couldn’t give her anything. She needed to get away from me and have a life. She was wonderful, the most wonderful woman I had ever met, and she deserved to find someone who was capable of giving her what she deserved.

An anvil of jealousy hit me in the gut. God, another man touching her… Fucking her…

Loving her.

I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to erase the images from my mind. Have to let go. Have to let her go.

“Things change, Jade.”

“We just made love. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I did. I was massaging you, and then—”

“Enough!” I raked my fingers through my hair. “Leave my room. Leave this house.”

“I-I can’t leave tonight.”

“First thing in the goddamned morning, then. I don’t want to see your face here again.”

“But…what will I tell Marj?”

Thank God my sister was in the city tonight. “I’ll deal with Marj. You just get your ass out of this house in the morning.”

Her beautiful lips trembled, and her hair fell around her shoulders in unruly waves.

She turned and walked out of my room.

Out of my life.

Taking my only chance of happiness with her.