“I fell asleep?” I asked. It was dark outside. The fire was still burning. My eyes moved from the fire to Hush. He met my eyes briefly, and then looked away. My heart sank. No . . . He was going to push me away again. I could see it. The hard mask he had shed after the seizure was again firmly in place, a scowl on his face and his eyes frosted over.
His protective shield.
I looked at Cowboy. But before he could even meet my eyes, he got up off the couch and stormed out of the room. The door that led to the porch slammed shut. I hadn’t been able to hear the conversation they’d been having as I awoke, but I could guess at the topic.
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Me. Hush’s rejection of me, once again.
Hush’s attention was back on the fire. I got up and went into the kitchen. I poured myself a large glass of water and one for Hush. I took the water to him, but I didn’t look at him. I wasn’t sure I could, not right now. My stomach was in pieces at the thought of him never letting me hold his hand again. Or kiss his soft lips.
I had no idea what the hell it would take for me to get through to him.
I went upstairs into the bathroom and started the shower. The fire in the living room mixed with the warm weather had made the house a friggin’ sauna. I didn’t care because that’s what Hush had needed. Still needed to help him recover.
I stepped into the shower and let the cool water run over my head. I reached for the body wash and began soaping up my skin. As my hands ran over my shoulders and the sides of my back, I thought of Hush. For once I thought of something else but Juan in these moments. I let my fingertips ghost over the marks that I’d only ever kept to myself.
I heard the scream in my head. I felt the blazing heat, followed by the rapid onset of excruciating pain. I replayed it all in my head, a pair of dark midnight eyes watching on. Teaching me a lesson, he’d called it. So no man would ever want what was his.
My palms flattened on the tiled wall. I turned up the temperature of the shower to counterattack the shivers that had broken out along my skin. But as I stood there, shaking my head and gasping for breath to rid my mind of that night, of the night he forever ruined me, I thought of Hush. I thought of him on the floor, body shaking from the racking seizure. And I thought of the scars on his arms. So similar to mine.
I lifted my head, tipping my face up to the shower. My tears mixed with the stream and washed down the drain. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed under the spray—enough time to help me decide what I would do next. I got out of the shower and went to the mirror. I rubbed the steam off the glass and stared at my reflection. Blue eyes met mine. My wet hair ran down my back and over my shoulders. Even after all this time, it was still hard to face this. Face . . . me . . .
Mine, bella. You belong to me now . . . Don’t you know there’s no leaving me now I’ve got you? I will give you a good life. One worthy of a queen . . .
The skin on my back crawled in disgust. Swallowing the nervous lump that had lodged itself in my throat, I slowly turned, never taking my eyes off my reflection. I hadn’t looked at my back for months and months. So when the red scars came into view, I couldn’t contain the whoosh of breath that fell from my lips. I didn’t know what I was thinking . . . what I expected to find this time, every time. It was always the same: the ugliness, the mottled and broken skin textured into lumps and bumps that would forever remind me of the time I’d placed my trust in the fucking devil himself.
The devil who was now searching the length and breadth of the country to drag me back to hell.
I didn’t even blink at that thought. I was numb as I stared in the mirror as if studying the ruined flesh would somehow reverse the damage.
I let my instincts lead me. Reaching for the thin pink towel on the floor, I wrapped it around my body and opened the bathroom door. Steam escaped, colliding with the fresh air from the hallway. I walked downstairs, turning toward the living room. I heard the cracking of the fire and my footsteps padding on the wooden floor as I followed my feet to the room. I kept my eyes straight forward, blocking the stifling fear that was trying to claw its way up my throat.
“Sia?” I heard Cowboy call. He was sitting on the couch where I’d fallen asleep. He shuffled to the edge of the couch, but I held out my hand for him to stay still. Looking to my right, I met Hush’s ice-blue eyes. His forehead was lined in confusion and his full lips were pursed as he looked at me. My vision shimmered as the tears I’d known would fall began to drip over my cheeks. Clearing my throat, I let my lips move. “When I was seventeen, I ran away,” I announced, my voice broken with the pain this memory brought out each time I relived it. Hush stopped breathing. His large body was a statue under the blanket that kept him warm. I absently noticed that he once again had color in his cheeks and life in his stunning eyes.
My hands shook on the towel as I gripped it tightly over my breasts. But I had to keep going. “I . . . I was broken.” I lowered my eyes to the floor, focusing on the grains in the wooden floors. “I didn’t have a close relationship with my aunt. And I was always pissed. Pissed that I never got to know my momma, who had died so many years before.” I winced as those feelings drove themselves to the forefront of my mind. “My poppa was non-existent in my life. Ky . . . Ky came and saw me as much as he could. But the war with the Diablos was building and occupied most of his time.” A teardrop hit my lip and fell into my mouth, the salty water the perfect allegory for the bitterness that dripped from my soul in those days. “My aunt was a kind woman but had no real love for kids. She was gone a lot, and I . . .” I sniffed and let my wet hair hide my face. “I was lonely.”
“Cher,” Cowboy said. “You don’t need to go there right now.”
I held out one of my hands and ran my finger down Cowboy’s handsome face. He was beautiful, achingly so. His eyes were so open and kind. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen such kind eyes before. My hand dropped away. “I had a friend, Michelle.” I sucked in an agonized breath. I shook my head, like I could erase her pretty face from my mind. Rid myself of the guilt I felt whenever I thought of how she was left behind. But I managed a smile as I thought of her wild ways. “She hated where we lived. She was always getting me to do crazy things . . .”
There was a knock on my window. I kicked back my comforter and drew back the curtains. Michelle’s face was smiling up at me. I pulled up my window and she climbed through. The second I turned around, she whispered, “You. Me. Mexico. This Friday.”
I blinked in surprise. “What—”
“You wanna leave this place. So do I. I got us passports.” I opened my mouth to ask how, but she waved me off. “Those photobooth pictures we took weren’t just for shits and giggles, girl. As for the rest . . .” She shrugged. “Forging your shitty scrawl weren’t hard. The rest was a piece of cake.”
I burst out laughing, my heart begging to race in excitement. Michelle dragged me to the bed. “It’s all organized. All you need now is your bikinis and your sunglasses.”
I thought of my poppa and how he couldn’t give a fuck about what happened to me. Ky almost never saw me now, and my aunt was away with work more than she was here. I had my horse . . . but when I thought of getting the hell away . . . thought of the sandy beaches, and the fact that it wasn’t fucking Texas, my decision was made.
“I’m in,” I said. Michelle squealed and launched her arms around me.
“You won’t regret it, Sia. It’ll be the best fucking thing we ever do!”
“We ran to Mexico.” I closed my eyes, remembering crossing the border and feeling so fucking high with freedom. With the idea of a new beginning away from the club. Then I remembered—
“I met Juan Garcia two days into our trip.” His face flashed into my head. His dark eyes, olive skin, and beautiful black hair, short at the sides and perfectly styled on the top. I laughed a single humorless laugh. “I was smitten the minute I saw him.” I pictured his toned, lithe body in shorts, walking across the beach to where we sat sunbathing. “I was seventeen; he was twenty-five. I had never been in love before. I’d barely even had a boyfriend before. I hadn’t really come to grips with who I was as a person. At how I’d been kept from my father and brother all my life. And I wasn’t really ready to face the shit I knew would be waiting for me at home. So when Juan swept me off my feet, I went willingly.”
My hand shook as it fought to keep its grip on the towel. “It was obvious that he became as obsessed with me as I did him. We were never apart. He took me to dinners in restaurants I could only ever have dreamed of eating in. The locals worshipped the ground he walked on . . . and in no time at all, so did I. I loved him to death . . . until . . .” I shook my he
ad. Just remembering that day made me nauseous. “Only a week after I’d met Juan, Michelle left me a note to say that she’d moved on to where we were supposed to travel next. She understood I’d found Juan and she wanted me to stay with him. She said she would see me again in a few weeks.” I blinked, seeing the letter so clearly in my head. It was her writing. I recognized it. “It was just like her. Leaving me to get laid while she flitted to the next thing she wanted to do. It was typical Michelle, so I never doubted it.” A quick sob came from my throat, catching me off guard. “Only she never came back. I asked Juan for help. He was a businessman, a rich man with contacts. But there was nothing we could find about where she’d gone.” I took a deep inhale. “That was, until I went looking for him one day at his work.” I smiled humorlessly at my own stupidity. “And found . . . found . . .”
“Enough, cher.” Cowboy got up from the couch. “You’re fucking shaking. Don’t do this. You don’t need to tell us.” I turned my face to look at Hush. His jaw was tight and he was gripping the blanket so hard I thought it would rip apart.
“I couldn’t leave,” I continued, voice croaking just remembering all the shit he’d put me through. “He kept me in his home. I . . . I didn’t dare cross him. Then one time, I did.”
I stepped away from Cowboy. He radiated pure rage, his thick arms showing off every vein and muscle under his golden skin. I wasn’t sure my legs would carry me into the center of the living room where they both could see me.
Where Hush could see.
“I only made that mistake once.” I drew in a deep breath. “It only took one punishment to make me understand that I could never betray him again.” I closed my eyes and willed myself to do this. For Hush, I told myself. I thought of him on the floor, the seizure taking control of his body. Of his face in the aftermath, his eyes looking up at me with such need, such desperation for comfort. My comfort.
My fingers loosened on the towel and I let the material slip down to my waist. I didn’t care that my breasts were bared. I knew they wouldn’t be the focus anyhow. Cowboy hissed behind me. But my eyes found Hush . . . and his gaze, staring at my back. “Acid,” I whispered. I felt my bottom lip shake.