Chapter 12

"What's your actual name?" I ask, staring across the kitchen the next morning, wearing nothing more than Bruiser's T-shirt while watching him cook breakfast, a cup of coffee in my hands. "I know your parents didn't name you Bruiser. I mean, unless your last name is different from your mom's, I know is Gentry."

"My parents named me Dorian Tyler Gentry," he answers me while flipping bacon but looks over in my direction. "My parents were married for two years before they had my sister, Leanna, she's six years older than me."

"That's a pretty large age gap between the two of you," I remark, thinking of the mere two-year difference between Simon and myself. We're close in age, and though we love each other, it's nothing compared to what I saw at the funeral, the way Bruiser stuck to his sister, comforting her and the children.

"Yeah, parents wanted more, but Mom couldn't have them. They were lucky to get me out of the deal," he states and returns his attention to the bacon.

For a moment, I allow myself to think about the night before. After two rounds in bed of him rocking my world, Bruiser ordered pizza. I'm not one for pizza, I prefer pasta, but eating it in front of the TV. Again, with me in his shirt and him just as he is now in jeans still undone. Also, like then, I keep thinking about how easily it would be to slip those jeans off him and go to my knees. Last night, he didn't give me the chance to get my own taste. He spent it devouring me, and I loved every bit of it. Still, I want my chance to pleasure him as well. Though not while he's dealing with hot bacon grease.

"What are the plans for today?" he asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

"I don't know. I need to get back to work. Which the next shift is tomorrow."

Angie texted me about the shift change, stating that she and Mick are back on shift tomorrow.

"You going to the gym?" Bruiser cocks a brow and plates the delicious-smelling food he'd been cooking.

"No." I don't want to tell him that I'm thinking of taking a break. That I thought about leaving the area.

"Why not?" Setting a plate in front of me, he takes the seat next to me, focusing his full attention on me.

"I just feel like staying home." I shrug, pick up my fork, ready to eat and talk about this.

"I know you haven't been teaching the class, Princess. You've been sparring with Rico and working out to the point of exhaustion."

"Let me guess, my babysitters reported everything little thing I did." I scoff and take a bite of the bacon he cooked just the way I like it without even knowing it's how I eat it.

Bruiser watches me closely. "Colt and Carbine were doing what they were told to do. Their job was to protect you and make sure you were safe, Gwyneth. They couldn't exactly do that when you barred them from your apartment. So, they reported in."

"Exactly what a babysitter is supposed to do." I shrug.

"Princess, you need to get the fuck over your issue about having the club watch over you," he states, narrowing his gaze. "Your safety is important as well as those my brothers claimed as ol' ladies. No one wants to see you taken, beaten, or raped."

I feel the color draining down my face at those words. I don't want or need to think about what could happen to me if this man actually did manage to get his hands on me. "No one is going to do that to me," I murmur tersely, maybe even a bit weakly.

"You're damn right. No one is going to do any of that shit to you," Bruiser proclaims, getting up from his seat. He jerks me from mine and into his arms. "I'm gonna make sure nothing happens to you, Gwyneth. So, brace, Princess, ‘cause you're in for a rude awakening if you can deal with not having us protect you. Dagger's back on the rig with you and I'm at your back as well as in your bed."

He doesn't give me a chance to speak further. Instead, I find myself locked to him and his lips on mine. All I can do is wrap my arms around his neck and hold on tight.

"Got to ask you something," Bruiser states hours later.

Lots of hours later.

We spent the majority of the day after breakfast screwing on every surface of my apartment. From the dining table to the kitchen counter, into the living room, on my couch, even the floor. We finally managed to get into my bed, where I rode him to climax.

There wasn't a part of me that Bruiser didn't touch. Including my rear, though it was only with his fingers touching me there. The girth of his shaft, I know he'll never fit. I'm lucky enough that he can fit inside me, period. He's a massive guy. If he didn't make me wet from just looking at him or didn't have foreplay, there's no way he'd get that monster cock to enter my vajayjay.

Lifting up off his chest, I look up to find him watching me from where he's got his head propped up on my pillows. "What?"

"I meant to talk to you about it earlier, but we got . . . distracted." He smirks. "It's not something I prefer to talk about while we're lying naked, but we gotta talk about it."

"Okay." I shift on the bed, sit upright next to him, and pull the sheet up and over my breasts.

Bruiser adjusts until he's also sitting upright, but rather than talking, he leans forward and grips my hips, pulling me up and over his body until I'm straddling his lap. "Don't ever shield your body from me," he commands, kissing my lips with a simple peck, but it's still enough to cause my toes to curl.

I struggle briefly to try to keep myself from grinding against him. Being in his lap, his thick, monster shaft right there, still hard and ready to go, it doesn't make it easy to concentrate.

"What is it you need to talk to me about?" I finally find my voice and ask.

Bruiser's grip on my waist loosens as he shifts more and sits with his back against the headboard, hands going around me, securing me so there's no way to escape.

"Any time today." If he doesn't start talking, I'm going to end up trying to find a way to get his cock inside me again.

Of course, he has to give me that knowing smirk of his that tells me that he knows exactly what I'm thinking.

"As much as I want to be inside you right now, this is important. So, I'm gonna need for you to focus for me," he states.

"Easier said than done," I grumble with a roll of my eyes.

"Princess, focus," he mutters.

"Yeah, yeah, focus." Sucking in a breath, I brush my hands up his chest and wrap my arms around his neck. "All right, let's hear it," I say, doing my best at being serious.

Bruiser shakes his head slightly as if he didn't know what to do with me. He takes a breath, eyes boring into me. "The Spa."Those two words are enough to cause me to stiffen and attempt to jerk away from him. "I see you know what I'm talking about, Gwyneth, and I need to know what they did to you."

"I'm not talking about that place with you," I snarl, all thoughts of sex wiped from my mind.

"We're talking about it, Gwyneth, whether you like it or not. I need to know what the fuck they did to you there."

"No, you don't." There's no way in hell I'm about to talk to him about this or anything to do with the subject. "I refuse to talk about this with you. It's none of your business. Period."

"When it comes to you, baby, it's my business," Bruiser remarks a bit harshly and tightens his arms further. "Now, start talking before I put you over my knee and give you a spanking you won't like."

"You wouldn't dare." I gape, eyes wide.

"Oh, I definitely dare. Don't test me on this. You don't start talking, you'll find yourself spanked. Spanked and fucked."

The warning in his tone sends a shiver down my spine. I don't think I want him to fuck me with the way he said that. Then again, this is Bruiser, I'd probably take him however I can.

"Fuck me. Your pussy is drenching me," he growls and grinds himself against me. "We'll get to that, but first, you're gonna answer my damn question. What did they do to you in that place?"

Groaning, I bite my bottom lip, dread threatening to consume me at the mere thought of the place I prefer to think of as Hell rather than a place to be pampered. "What exactly do you know of the place?" I find myself whispering the question.

"That they have different treatments," he states, curling his lip on the last word.

"They do," I agree, nodding, "And during the six months I was there, I went through each and every one of them."

Bruiser's body tenses, and his eyes narrow. "You went through them all?"

"To say I wasn't my mom's ideal daughter. I made good grades in school. Had friends, though they weren't real friends." I drop my gaze from his and take a deep breath. "I left home the first chance I had. I didn't take a single thing except for the clothes on my back and a small backpack with only a few of my things that I cherished."

"Gwyneth, look at me," Bruiser commands. I know it's a command, but he keeps his voice calm and gentle, though his body is stiff and ready to strike at any moment if a threat arises. With it just us in the room, there's nothing of the sort except for the story he seems to want to hear.

Slowly, I lift my gaze back to his. "Those six months, I endured everything my mother ordered for them to do. She said it was for me to learn my place in society. That I need to know how to be a wife to someone of our stature. She claimed that the man who was to become my husband would want someone to know how to please him in every way and never talk back. Thankfully, Simon never had to go through any of that."

"All right, Princess, that's enough. You don't need to say anymore. I just needed to know why you do things that you do," he remarks, leans forward, and presses his forehead to mine.

"I do what I do because I learned no one else is going to protect me. I needed to be able to save myself. Never let another person get a hold of me and put me through the hell like my mother allowed. I can't even blame both parents for it. It was all her. My father didn't even know about it. She told him I was spending six months of school over in France."

I give myself a moment to get ahold of my emotions, and Bruiser doesn't say anything while I do so. Because of this, I take another moment before relaxing into him.

"Swear with all I am, Gwyneth, you'll never go another day without knowing someone's got your back," he says, loosening his arms from around me. He slides one hand up my spine until he's tangling his fingers in my hair, and the other cups my rear. "You can protect yourself, but that doesn't mean I won't protect you."

I don't know what to say to those words, so I don't. Instead, I lift my head away from his and show him in other ways what he said means to me.