Chapter 9

MIRANDA

“I don’t need a man anyway,”I shout to be heard above the club music, sloshing margarita over the edge of my cup. It spills down my fingers. “Oh, shit.”

I giggle and slurp the frozen margarita slush that’s slipping down my wrist.

Daniel rolls his eyes and leans in to shout so I can hear him. “You are a mess and you so need a man.”

My mouth drops open as my eyes shoot back to Daniel. “Do not even start with me.”

Daniel just crosses his arms over his chest and lifts one eyebrow like, oh yeah? “Then why are you wearing that little black dress and flashing so much thigh half the club is fucking you with their eyes? Plus, you only drink tequila when you’re hoping to get some.”

“Wha—? I am not.” I jerk down on the hem of my dress. Okay so the dress might be a tad on the teensy side. “And everyone knows Chandelier has the best tasting Margaritas this side of Market street.”

“Uh huh.”

I make a face at him, then look around. “Where’s Irina, anyway? Shouldn’t she be here and, I don’t know, like putting you in chastity or whipping your ass for even looking at these other women?”

Daniel gives a long-suffering sigh. “I wish. I ordered these new specialty silver ball crushers I’ve been wanting to try out with her but she just says she’s been busy all week so we’ve only been able to play over Skype. If I just wanted to shove a dildo up my own ass and spank myself, I wouldn’t need her in the first place. But that shit barely gets me off. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

Daniel is my best friend and one dirty mofo. I’ve watched him scene a few times at The Dungeon. He loves all aspects of being dominated by women. Well, as long as that woman is a serious sadist. Nobody loves pain like my boy Daniel.

I might like to ride the edge, but Daniel has never seen a cliff he doesn’t want to jump off of, and has pushed things so far in bad situations that he’s ended up in the hospital a couple times. But that’s part of it for him. Trying to push his Dommes past their limits. Which means, really, it’s him that’s not the true sub, not me.

Or maybe it just means we’re both really fucked up in our own delightful ways.

I put a hand on Daniel’s arm. “I’m sorry, babe.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine.” He shrugs it off but I can see he’s still bothered. Daniel’s the kind of guy who bottles things up and if he doesn’t get release regularly, shit can get scary.

We met during one of his brief stints with therapy. It was after everything with Bryce and yeah, I wanted to die.

Daniel and I met in a group for people recovering from domestic abuse. It didn’t feel like exactly the right word for what Bryce had done to me. What I’d let him do to me.

I never spoke up in group.

The stories the others told… they’d been married or in relationships with men who beat and raped them on a regular basis. Some of their partners apologized or bought flowers and were kind to them for a time, but always the violence came back. Most had been to the hospital more than once. One woman’s arm was broken and she couldn’t speak because her jaw had to be wired shut after her husband had broken it.

Their cases seemed so much more… I don’t know, clean cut than mine? With Bryce it was more like—like I’d participated in the abuse, if that makes any sense.

I hated it but I still got off on it. By the end, I started craving it as my world narrowed down to a single focus—pleasing Bryce.

Even though pleasing him was impossible. Bryce was never pleased. Not by me, anyway. Not even by my suffering. I understood in the end that that was what he’d gotten off on all along. He wasn’t capable of caring about anyone besides himself.

The only person in the group who spoke about anything close to what I’d experienced was Daniel.

He was only nineteen and had nothing like the physique he does today. He was rail-thin back then, a recovering addict, and only there because it was part of his court-ordered therapy after he stabbed his uncle in the thigh. He’d been aiming for the groin but his uncle had jumped away at the last second. An uncle who had brutally abused him for years after his mom died.

Daniel fluctuated between a sarcastic fuck-off attitude in therapy and rage-filled outbursts. I liked him immediately.

I approached him and asked him if he wanted to get coffee one night after he’d gone on a ten-minute rant about how he wished he’d killed his uncle instead of just stabbing him in the stupid leg.

Daniel looked me up and down. “What, is this like a sex thing? You want to fuck me cause you get off on sad, fucked up guys? Cause I’m down but only if you know how to swing a paddle.”

“No, I don’t want to—! God, I know you’re an asshole, but maybe turn it off for like five minutes? Or half an hour to come have some damn coffee with me. As a friend,” I emphasized. “No sex. No,” I shuddered, “Paddles.”

He started laughing. Hard. Then pointing at me. “Jesus, you should see the look on your face.”

I grabbed his finger he was pointing at me with and jammed it backwards until he jumped away. “Ow, ow, shit.” Then he grinned at me. “You sure about the paddles? Cause that was a pretty good start.”

I rolled my eyes and called over my shoulder that my invitation would be revoked if he didn’t hurry his ass up.

And that was the start of our beautiful friendship.

“Do you want to dance?” Daniel asks suddenly and stands up. “Cause I don’t want to sit here like two sad shits whining about not having a date.”

I brighten and shove my phone into the side of my bra, then I extend my hand. “Yes. Let’s dance.”

He grins and pulls me onto the dance floor, immediately whirling me into a spin. My giggling shriek is lost in the pounding base of the club beat.

God, how long has it been since I just let loose and had fun?

It feels good not to worry about moody men with enigmatic pasts or to be anxious about keeping secrets of my own. The up-tempo beat slows to a mesmerizing, drumming base that thumps while a woman with an ethereal alto sings over top.

I hold onto Daniel’s shoulders and sway with the music. My eyes fall shut and I lean my head backwards, shaking my long hair until I feel it swish back and forth against my shoulderblades.

The woman’s sonorous, voice draws a long, sensuous note and I roll my head along with her voice, imagining it’s Dylan’s shoulders I’m clinging too, not Daniel’s.

I whip my head back up and lean into his chest.

But the scent is all wrong. And the way he holds me, loosely around my waist.

Dylan always grips me, possessively, riding the edge of pinching. When I’m with Dylan, there’s not a moment I can forget who I’m with.

Which is maybe why the last few days have felt so empty and colorless without him. I drop my forehead to Daniel’s chest and his arms close around me.

“It’s too bad you don’t like beating the shit out of people,” he says into my ear. “You and I would have made the best couple.”

That makes me laugh and pull back. “Two subs together? Yeah, that never would have worked. It’s why we’ve been able to be friends all these years.”

Daniel smiles back. “I know, peanut. But alas, you aren’t a mean enough bitch for me.”

He kisses my forehead and then swings me out again. I squeal with laughter as he yanks me back into his chest. I always do, every time he pulls that move. Probably why he keeps doing it any time we find ourselves on a dance floor together. He loves making me laugh and he always knows when I need it.

He does some fancy jazz moves, dancing around me, completely ignoring the tempo of the music. He grabs my hands and we dance double tempo to the music, laughing and probably pissing off all the couples around us who are looking for a romantic moment.

We dance for another few songs until I grab Daniel’s sleeve and go up on tiptoe so he can hear me over the thumping bass. “I need to go to the restroom.”

“What?” he shouts, holding a hand to his ear.

“I need to pee.”

“Huh?”

“I gotta piss!”

And naturally I shouted that when there was a short lull in the music and everyone around us turns my way.

Daniel just grins like the evil shit he is. I punch him in the shoulder and head for the bathrooms.

I smooth my hair down as I head for the hallway back to the restrooms. Damn, I’m thirsty. I should get some water. And order another margarita while I’m at it because I’m coming down off the nice floaty buzz and I—

What—?

I screech as I’m grabbed and roughly jerked sideways into a dark room. The door to the hallway I’m in slams shut and the next thing I know, I’m shoved face first against a wall.

“You think that’s cute? To rub up against another man like that? To be a fucking cock tease?”

It’s Dylan’s voice.

My eyelids flutter shut as his big, manly hand shoves my little black dress up and palms my ass. Then he smacks it. So hard I cry out.

But it doesn’t matter. The music is so loud in the club, no one can hear me.

“A tease is a promise, slut. And you owe me. You owe me big for that fucking show you were putting on out there.”

The way he shoves his groin into my ass, it’s clear how he means for me to pay up.

Why is he here?

The way he left things, God, I should be bitching him out. Demanding answers. He doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. Then he just shows up here and he has the audacity to be jealous!

Or maybe that’s just part of the act? Has he even thought of me the past three days, when I’ve been a mess over him?

“If I was teasing anyone,” I turn and say over my shoulder, “it was Daniel, not you. Not some fucking creeper hiding in the shadows just watching. I want a real man.”

“This real enough for you?” he growls, shoving me down to the ground. It’s pitch black and as my palms hit the tile floor, the smell of lemon-scented cleaners gets even stronger and—is that a mop bucket my shoulder just bumped into?

I don’t have a chance to reach around to orient myself, though, because he lands on top of me. I cry out when he puts his knee in my back to hold me in place while he rips my panties down.

He shifts and the next second, I feel it, his fat cock shoving between my thighs.

I fight and twist underneath him but he leans over, caging me in.

“You want out, little girl, say the magic word.” His breath is hot on my cheek.

But he knows, he has to know—that’s the last thing in the world that I want. It doesn’t mean I’m going down without a fight, though.

He. Didn’t. Fucking. Call.

All week I’ve been going crazy thinking I was alone in this. Thinking that I’d blown it. I ran over every little thing I did and envisioned doing it differently. Anything to make an outcome where he ended up beside me in my bed when the alarm went off.

But he was, what? Just playing with me? Or maybe he thought I was the one playing. God, the way he found me in the garage with that random guy the first night we met… What if he really thinks I am a whore? That I spread it for anyone who’ll spank me and say yes when I say no?

And tonight here I am, out with Daniel. But he’s just a friend. I don’t care what it looked like. I’m allowed to have friends.

“I am not a whore.” I fight against Dylan’s iron grip.

He reaches his other hand underneath me to lift my stomach up off the ground so that I’m slightly up on my knees.

“Oh yeah?” My entire body shudders when he reaches down, grabs his cock, and teases the head of it up and down my pussy lips. I can’t help clenching and of course, he feels it.

He chuckles darkly.

“If you aren’t a whore, why are you so wet for me? A creepy fucking stranger who was watching you all night?” He realigns his cock at the center of my core. “Or maybe that’s what really gets you off. Imagining the men in the dark corners watching you and getting hard. Every one of them thinking about doing this.”

He shoves into me and I screech. His hand slaps over my mouth. Every one of his moves is brutal. His hand mashes my mouth shut and each jerk of his hips as he fucks me is sharp and vicious.

“But I’m the only one who gets this cunt. I’m the only fucking one, do you hear me?”

Tears squeeze out of my eyes as I nod. Does he mean it? And how fucked up am I that his words are making me happy? But if he’s the only one who gets to have me, it has to mean he wants me, right? That he wants there to be an us?

The next second though, all thoughts are obliterated when he shoves me off my knees so my belly is flush to the floor. My hands scrabble at the tiles but there’s no getting away from him. His cock is so long and thick that even though my legs aren’t spread, he has no problem continuing to fuck me.

And now, since the floor holds me completely still, he’s able to fuck me even deeper, even harder.

He saws in and out of me and I can’t remember the last time I was so thoroughly used. The orgasm is rising with each raw, harsh stroke.

“Jesus, Miranda,” he says, pulling his hand away from my mouth, but only so he can grab my hair at the base of my neck. He drags my face sideways. If there were any light in this closet, I’d be able to see him over my shoulder. But as it is, it’s still pitch black.

His voice, though, fills me with warmth and light.

“You’re perfect, Miranda. The most perfect—” I don’t know how he would have finished the thought because he crushes my mouth with his. His kiss is furious and demanding, and all the while he continues yanking my hair and fucking me.

The pain is perfect.

Just like him. I wasn’t crazy about how good the other night was. This man. God, this man. I’ve never had perfect like him. Maybe I never will again.

Maybe there’s only now, only this crescendo rising inside me. I break away from his mouth to let out the gasping whine.

Instead of kissing me again, though, he shoves two fat fingers into my mouth. I suck on them like I would his cock.

“Fuck,” he calls and yanks my hair even harder. He’s holding himself up by his elbows and I know the tile has to be punishing. How long can he keep this up?

I tease my teeth along his fingers stuffed in my mouth and he clutches my jaw with the rest of his hand.

My face is so small in his huge hand. He could crush me.

He rears back and then forces his fat cock back inside.

And I cum.

So hard and so long that I’m grateful for his fingers in my mouth because they muffle my howl.

It was his hand on my face that sent me over. Well, that and the fact that he’s really fucking good at hitting just the right spot up so deep inside me. God, how does he do that?

But I know it’s the thought that he could so easily break me—but he doesn’t—that had me crying and choking his name around his fingers as the spasms hit.

He stills inside me right after I’m triggered. I clench around him as his cum spurts into me, even though it takes the very last of my strength to do it.

I’ve been sleeping for shit the past few nights and have been a zombie at work. But being here, with him, it’s worth it. Anything is worth it as long as I have him.

I lift a hand behind me to cling to him as we both come down from the high.

We’re both still dressed, connected only at our most intimate place. He stays hard inside me longer than anyone ever before and I love that he holds our connection long after the event has passed.

We linger and it’s so damn beautiful.

He finally pulls his fingers out of my mouth and the hand that was ruthlessly gripping my hair only minutes ago now gently combs it back from my face.

I think I’m going to swoon from the gentleness.

Because it’s dark and he can’t see, I don’t fight the tears that continue to flow down my cheeks. I don’t want him to know this is the most intimate part yet.

That maybe even more than the sex, more than the pain, this is what I crave.

A soothing, loving touch from the same hand that brought the hurt.

This is what I need.

Both sides.

Jekyll and Hyde.

I need them both to love me.

Which is why I die, I die, when seconds later, he whispers, “shit,” and jerks away from me. “Fuck, Miranda. This is wrong. I don’t know why I— I was on my way home and that’s where I should have gone. But then I remembered all those texts and worried you’d be waiting out back in the alley all alone.”

Oh shit. The texts. I completely forgot about them. But he’s right, I said I’d be waiting out back of the club tonight. I just figured, after the way we left things, he wouldn’t want—

“And then you weren’t there and I came in and saw you with him—”

He cuts off again and I feel him stand up. He moves away from me. I barely hear his, “I’m sorry,” before the flashing lights of the club burn my eyes as the door is pushed open.

I get only the barest glimpse of Dylan’s silhouette before he’s gone and the door slams shut again.

Leaving me alone.

Used and discarded, with his cum still dripping out of me.

I blink and I’m back there. In that room. There weren’t any windows in that room either. It stank of cigar smoke and male sweat.

And just like now, I was used like a whore and then left on the floor when they were done.

Christ, are you just gonna lay there? Have some dignity, you useless cunt. Get up.

But I’d been too exhausted, ridden too hard for too long.

What a worthless bitch.

They laughed as they closed the door on me.

At least Dylan didn’t laugh, but here I am again.

Why did I ever think pursuing Dylan was a good idea when I’ve fought so hard to get my life back after Bryce? Or is this what I think I deserve? To be broken and left alone in a closet.

When I try to climb up to my knees, I can’t. I just can’t. I collapse back to the tiles, sobbing so hard I wouldn’t be able to see even if there was light.

So I don’t see when the door opens again.

And I jump out of my skin when the hand touches my shoulder. I scramble backwards. I guess I can move after all. Terror will do that to a girl.

“Hey, hey, it’s me.”

Light suddenly illuminates the closet and there Dylan is, crouched over me, his phone lit up like a flashlight.

“Jesus.” He looks me up and down and his forehead scrunches in remorse. “Come here.” He drops the phone and pulls me to him, pressing my face against his chest.

I know my face is a mess and I try to pull away. “No, my mascara—”

“Hush.” He pulls me tighter to him.

I don’t relax against him.

He left me here.

Just like him. Just like Bryce.

And I felt every inch as worthless as I used to.

I try to push away but he folds me tighter to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, his mouth right against my ear so I can hear the words in spite of the club music outside. “I’m so fucking sorry, Miranda.”

For a long minute, he just holds me.

He holds me until I give in and sink against him. Right after I do, I feel the tremor go through his body. Like he was terrified I wouldn’t forgive him.

When I finally pull away, I look up at him. “You hurt me,” I whisper.

I know he hears me because his eyes widen in horror. I grab his arm and clarify. “Don’t you ever leave me like that again. I can’t— I don’t know what this is, but if we do it, you can’t leave me like that after—” I break off, shuddering. “I just can’t handle that, okay?”

He nods. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

It’s only when my phone buzzes on the tile that I realize it must have fallen out of my bra when we were having sex earlier. I bend over to pick it up and Dylan grabs my hand and bends with me, like he’s unwilling to break contact with me.

I check the phone. It’s a text from Daniel. Where you at, bitch?

Dylan is looking over my shoulder and he can’t hold back his disapproving growl.

I jerk my head to look up at him. “He’s just a friend, and that’s how we talk to each other. No jealous bullshit.”

Dylan swallows and then nods.

I text back: Mr. Tall, Dark Sexy showed up. Catch you later next week?

The response is almost immediate. No words, just three eggplant emojis.

I roll my eyes and Dylan snorts as I drop my phone back in the side of my bra.

He picks up his phone and then, his fingers still interlocked with mine, he opens the door and leads me back through the club. I don’t bother trying to find Daniel in the flashing lights that pierce the dark every so often. Chandelier is huge and Daniel’s not the kind of guy to be in want of dance partners.

Besides, I’m still a bit shaky on my feet. I’m putting on a good front for Dylan but everything tonight was… intense, to put it mildly.

I’m glad when we get out of the club and into the quiet cool of the night air, and even happier when, one Uber ride later, Daniel’s guiding me up the front steps to my house.

He hesitates after I put my key in the door and flip the lock.

“Can I—? I’d like to come inside.”

I bite my bottom lip and give a slow nod as another wave of relief washes over me. He’s not running. Maybe… Maybe this thing between us really could be something different?

“Jesus it drives me crazy when you bite your lip like that,” he says, reaching behind me to turn the doorknob and shove the door open.

The next thing I know, he’s walking me backwards through the foyer.

We only make it to the couch and he’s inside me before he’s even kicked off his shoes.

“Jesus Christ,” he swears, his jaw clenching above me as his head tips back. Dear God, he’s the most magnificent man I’ve ever seen. His five o’clock shadow is dark and it only makes the perfect cut of his jaw more dramatic.

Then he looks back down at me and his bright, blue eyes are full of so much emotion I feel like I’m looking straight down into the heart of him.

“What are you doing to me, Miranda?” he asks, and I see the confusion mixed with wonder on his face as he slides gently, so achingly gently in and out of me. “I’m no good for you but I can’t stay away.”

I reach up and cup his face. “Don’t. Don’t stay away.”

I might have been questioning everything earlier, but he came back. And he’s here with me in this moment, sharing all of himself

“I won’t,” he whispers, leaning down and brushing his lips over mine, inhaling me. “Because apparently I can’t.”

I lift up to meet his lips and stop his teasing. He kisses me back the way I love best. Devouring me like I’m the single most important thing in his universe.

And this is how I know he’s nothing like Bryce Gentry. When I’m with Dylan, instead of feeling worthless, I feel as cherished as if I’m his everything.

* * *

My eyes blinkopen groggily at the shout. I sit up in bed and flip on the bedside lamp.

Just like last time, Dylan’s tossing and turning in the bedsheets. He’s having another nightmare. My chest squeezes at seeing him in such obvious pain.

“Chloe!” he cries.

My chest cinches again, for less noble reasons. Who is Chloe? She obviously means a lot to him.

“—kill you. I’ll–fucking kill you!” The words are somewhat slurred in his sleep but they’re clear enough for me to make them out. And I can hear his fury. His murderous rage.

I scramble back off the bed and stumble to my feet as I call out, “Dylan.”

His body jerks but he doesn’t wake up. “Fucking kill you!”

“Dylan!” I shout. “Wake up!”

When he still doesn’t wake up, I reach over and grab my pillow, then lob it at him. “Wake up, Dylan!”

He gives another shout and then shoots up to a sitting position, looking around him in confusion.

Then he sees me standing several feet away from the bed and it’s like I can see the blood drain from his face. He jumps out of the bed, the opposite side from me, and backs up until he hits the wall.

“Dylan.” My voice is trembling. “Who is Chloe? And what happened to her?”

He reacts like I slapped him.

“You were talking about wanting to kill someone.”

I regret the whispered words as soon as they’re out of my mouth because it’s like I can see him shut down in front of me.

His face goes blank as he reaches down for his pants.

“Stop it!” I run around the bed to him. “Don’t fucking do this again. Don’t run.”

His eyes squeeze shut when I grab his arms and get in his face.

“Talk to me. Please, Dylan.” Then I shake my head. “Shit. Or don’t. I’m sorry. It’s too early to be pressing, probably. We barely know each other and—”

“Don’t say that,” he cuts in sharply and the next second his hands are on my face and his eyes are searching mine. “Don’t you dare say that. I know you, Miranda Rose. I see you. I see the you that you don’t let anyone else see and I know that’s a fucking privileged.”

“Dylan—”

“No, let me finish.” He drops his forehead to mine, his eyes closing again briefly as he nuzzles against me. “I know you, Miranda. But I’m terrified for you to know me. I’m terrified you’ll be afraid of what you see,” he finishes in the barest whisper.

I’m shaking my head before he even finishes, though. “No. No, Dylan. I’m not afraid of you. Don’t you get that?” The only thing that scares me is how much I need him, especially considering how short a time I’ve known him. He’s a drug I’m quickly becoming addicted to.

But he gives a violent shake of his head and pulls away from me. “That’s because you don’t know—”

“Then tell me!”

When he turns back to me, there’s a haunted look in his eye. And then he nods. “All right. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you because I’m not strong enough to stay away but Miranda, you should make me. And soon you’ll know why.”

I swallow hard, all the sudden not sure if I actually want to know.

But he’s determined now, I can see it. There’s an almost masochistic gleam in his eye as he sits on the bed and starts to talk. He wants to tell this story to hurt himself and drive me away and I pray that it doesn’t.

“First of all, you need to know that my father was a violent man. He regularly beat and raped my mother.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

His voice is monotone as he stares at the wall and continues, “I never understood why my mother stayed.” His brow scrunches, like even now he’s confused. He shakes his head. “And to this day, it’s something I’ll never forgive her for.”

I blink at the raw bitterness in his voice.

“She died of cancer two years ago but I never spoke to her for the last six years of her life. Not even when she got sick.”

A chill goes down my spine at how cold his tone is. Is that what he thinks about all abuse victims? He blames them for staying?

Would he blame me for the two years I stayed with Bryce? For all the things I let him do to me?

“But if she was the one who was getting abused—”

He shakes his head and looks toward me. “I blame her for not leaving him because she never even tried to get my brother and sister out of that house. Especially my sister. Chloe.”

Chloe.

Oh God.

He must see that I’m connecting the dots because his jaw clenches and he nods.

“I don’t know how many years my father was sexually abusing my sister before I walked in on them one day six years ago.”

My hand claps over my mouth.

“What’s fucking hilarious is I thought I’d protected her and my brother Darren, by getting them out of the house whenever Dad was pulling his bullshit. I thought I was shielding them from it. When I moved away to the east coast for college, I told myself they’d be fine because Dad had just had a heart attack. He was weak afterwards and Dare and Chloe were in high school, almost out of the house. I told myself they’d be fine, that I’d protected them from the worst of it.”

Dylan walks to the window and slams his palms down on the windowsill. “So fucking stupid. Dad recovered in six months. The truth was I just didn’t want the responsibility of them anymore. I abandoned my sister to that monster.”

Neither of us says anything for a long moment. And I think about what he said in his sleep until finally I ask, voice shaking, “What happened after you found…” Oh God, I can’t imagine walking in on that. “Did you kill him?”

I wouldn’t blame him, but he shakes his head.

“I gave him a beating, but it was more important to get Chloe out of there. She’d been through enough. He had another heart attack a few months later and died so at least the evil fuck is gone now.”

“And Chloe? Is she okay? Now, I mean?”

He tells me about moving her to Austin. “She started out going to community college and eventually transferred to UT. Now she’s a music therapist and sometimes she publishes poetry in literary magazines.”

He looks so proud when he talks about her and I can see she’s the only bright light in this terrible story.

“She sounds wonderful. Do you see her often?”

“No,” he barks out. Then, slightly gentler though I can see he’s still agitated. “I never want her to have to look at me and be reminded of what she left behind here.” He drags a hand through his hair. “People say I look exactly like my father.”

“Oh Dylan.” I move forward and reach out for him, unable to go another moment without touching him.

But he jerks back, looking at me incredulously.

“What’s wrong with you? I just told you that my father raped my sister for years!” he shouts. “That I didn’t fucking see it. That I didn’t fucking save her. And even after that day, knowing what I know. It doesn’t stop me from—” He gestures at the bed. “I still want it like—” He breaks off and his mouth goes into a tight line.

“So you like rough sex. I do, too.” I toss my hands in the air. “It doesn’t mean you’re like your father.”

“We both know it’s more than rough sex.” His eyes cut to mine. “I want to hurt you. I want to violate you. I want to hurt you the same way I grew up watching him hurt my mother.” He turns away again and his back heaves. “The same way he was hurting my baby fucking sister.”

“No,” I say firmly. “It wasn’t your fault, Dylan. Your father was evil. But you aren’t him. You got your sister out.”

“Years too late!” he shouts again and I can’t help flinching back. He sees it and there’s remorse in his eyes. But then he hardens himself again. Like he thinks it’s good if he scares me away.

Oh Dylan.

He doesn’t know it, but I’ve looked into the face of evil, and he’s not it. How many years has he torn himself up about failing to help his sister sooner? Real evil feels no remorse. It has no empathy, or love, or compassion.

Real evil is Bryce Gentry, laughing with his friends after they all fucked me till I bled, leaving me broken on the floor.

Dylan Lennox is not evil.

He told me this story tonight to try to push me away but it’s only done the opposite. I see him so much more clearly now. I see the little boy growing up in that horrible, violent household. I think about how scared he must have been but still he tried to be a good big brother, shielding his brother and sister as best he could.

His whole life he grew up in that role—the protector. And then to find out his sister had been hurt so terribly, of course it would feel like failure to him at the deepest level. To him, he’d failed at his most basic job, the one he’d been doing since he was a child.

I wrap my arms around him from behind and though he flinches, he doesn’t pull away.

“Miranda—” he starts but I cut him off.

“Shhhhh.”

His shoulders slump and I press the side of my face to his spine. He’s carried this burden for so long. So many years the guilt has weighed him down. Guilt for someone else’s sins.

“Come with me.”

I reach around and take his hand. It’s limp in mine but when I tug, he follows.

He pauses on the threshold of the bathroom, though.

“Miranda, you should tell me to go.”

I just shake my head and pull him into the bathroom with me. I start running the bath and then turn back to him, tugging his shirt up and off over his head. I have to go up on my tiptoes, he’s so tall, but I finally get it off.

He watches me silently as I pull his boxer briefs down and then take off my own shirt and underwear.

I don’t miss the way his cock stiffens and I raise an eyebrow and just shake my head. I have no idea how he’s always so ready to go. I swear his cock defies nature.

But right now isn’t about sex. I take his hand and draw him toward the bath. He steps in and sits down. I get in, too, settling down in the tub behind him, his body between my legs in a reverse position of the last time we took a bath together.

I wrap my arms around him from behind and urge him to lay his head back against my breasts. As I turn on the jets, I feel the tension leave his body.

That’s right, baby. Give it all up to me.

“Close your eyes,” I murmur.

I look over his shoulder and see that he’s obeyed. Then I reach for the large plastic cup I keep on the corner lip of the tub and fill it up, then pour the water over his head. It streams down his face and his mouth opens as he gasps in surprise.

“Sorry, should have warned you.”

“No,” he says. “It’s nice.”

I dip the cup and pour another steaming waterfall over his head. I swear he relaxes even more against me.

“Are you baptizing me?”

His sleepy question makes me smile. I was just planning to wash his hair but I like his explanation even more.

“Yes. From now on, you’re made new.” I run my fingers through the damp hair on his chest. “The past can’t hurt you anymore,” I whisper.

He grabs my hand, interlocking our fingers.

“I meant what I said before.” His eyes are still closed but his grip tightens. “I can’t stay away. The only way to be rid of me is to tell me to go.”

I shake my head even though he can’t see it and wrap my legs around his waist from behind, along with the one arm he isn’t already holding.

“I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

He groans. “Jesus, I want to fuck you again, but I’m so tired.”

I laugh. “You always want to fuck me. But I’ll be here tomorrow.” I kiss the back of his head. “And the day after that.” I kiss him again, this time on his neck. “And the day after that.” Kiss. “And the day after that.”

He growls. “You better be.”

And then, tired or not, he turns us around in the tub and pulls me on top of him.