15. Daze

FIFTEEN

DAZE

Lex drives me back to the warehouse with Frey, the women, and the startled reporter in tow. I barely notice him linger behind with a nervous, "I'll uh…wait in the car."

With Frey in my arms, I'm blind to everything but her as I head straight toward the makeshift bathroom fashioned out of mixed-matched materials that Damien has scavenged together.

When I get Frey into the shower and remove her filthy, bloodied dress, I feel sick to my stomach. In anticipation of what I might find, I brace myself. God, if she's hurt or if that bastard harmed her, I'll…

Track him down and kill him with my bare hands. I'll kill them all.

"Daze…"

"I'm here, baby." I crouch before her and cradle her chin against my palm. "Look at me. What do you need?"

In this place, far from that fucking house, she doesn't seem any better. She's too thin. A hollow, frail figure of skeletal bones and papery skin. I keep stroking her as if the heat of my touch will be enough to snap some life back into her.

She still doesn't speak. As she stares at me, I don't sense the broken pain I saw the first time I met her. This is different. She's colder. Harder. It's as if just two fucking days have stripped away the last vestiges of sweet, innocent Frey—but it's not as if she's drowning in grief or fear this time.

It's anger, so strong she can't think clearly. Can't breathe. She can't look at herself in the damn mirror. She doesn't even want to look at me.

"Oh, baby..." I kiss her forehead, but I'm not sick enough to take advantage of her. There is nothing worse than this kind of agony—anger so intense that you can't think about anything else. It's new to her. She was raised in that pretty, gilded cage, shielded from the dark, twisted underbelly I grew up in.

But now?

Go figure, I have no idea how to help her navigate these emotions. All I can do is run my mouth as I wash her off, inch by delicate inch.

"You had me so fucking worried. Do you realize that? I thought I'd lost you." I twist my fingers through her hair, just to make sure she's still here and this isn't some sick hallucination after all. As soft as silk, the strands caress my skin. "Don't you ever scare me like that again. You hear me? I know you've been through hell."

That much is obvious. Although the blood isn't hers, there are plenty of bruises to compensate for that, peppering her smooth, once-unblemished skin. She has been beaten, and God knows what else. When I finger a swollen welt along her collarbone, she finally looks at me.

"It's my fault," she says, her voice hard like jagged glass. "All of it. I'm the reason Catherine's dead. Those girls… It's all my fault."

Despite my better judgment, I don't counter her yet. It seems more important for her to talk than for me to comfort her. Leaning her back against the wall, I alternate between smoothing her hair and cleaning her. As if examining me for the very first time, those large, green eyes fixate on my face, seemingly endless.

And damn. There is something almost fucking unnatural about the way my cock reacts. One glance and I'm tethered to her, unable to look away. I would follow this woman to the ends of the earth if she asked me to. Then I'd pull her back from the edge and teach her a thing or two about being so damn reckless.

There's no way around it—she scared the shit out of me. I'm still shaking, heart thumping with fear. The voice coming from my mouth doesn't even sound like me, it's too deep and raspy. "You had me so fucking worried, do you realize that?" My fingers trace her cheekbones, memorizing them. "I thought I'd never see you again. It was as if you'd ripped my fucking heart out, Frey. I never want to feel that pain again."

In order to take me in fully, she blinks and tilts her head. As she watches me, it's as if she is seeing me for the first time, and I am observing her in the same way. A beautiful pair of eyes surrounded by bruised and swollen skin. She reaches out, running her fingers along the stubble on my chin. I can't stop myself from capturing those slender digits, feeling every single inch of them.

"I know you wanted me to trust you," I say, pressing my mouth to her palm. "And I do, you know that. But if you ask me to leave you again…"

I know now isn't the time for sex. As she sucks in a breath, I can't help but pull her into me anyway, pressing my cock against the curve of her belly. Her hands grip my shoulders in return, and I sense a little bit more of her old self coming back.

"I don't know if I could do that, Freylie." My lips brush her hair as I inhale her scent, blood, sweat, and all. She still smells perfect. When I run my tongue along her earlobe, she tastes even better. Like sin and salvation rolled into one. Heaven and hell. I could worship at the altar of her body for the rest of my life and become a changed man.

"I'm never letting you out of my sight, you got that?" She doesn't react when I trace a path from her ear to her nose, then down to her upper lip. The second my lips touch the bruised skin, she flinches, and I pull back, focusing on cleaning her again.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," I explain, crouching down to drag the rag between her legs. They're shaking, along with her entire body. The only mark I find is a series of gouges on her inner thigh. Nail marks. Fuck. Did the bastard hurt her in a way that went beyond the physical? I bite my tongue rather than ask—it's not my place. Not now.

My only option is to be patient and follow her lead. When she parts her legs for me, I drag the rag between them, but not further.

"You can talk to me in your own time," I continue. "I'll leave you alone tonight if you want me to—but I'm not going beyond that door. I'll?—"

"I don't want you to leave." Her voice is a thin whisper as she eases a finger beneath my chin, making me look up. The look on her face is steely, her bottom lip skewered between her teeth in a way that does not convey a fragile, broken innocence. She looks like Damien did when I suggested we take on Heywood's crew head-on. Like she's itching for a fight. Aching to stab, beat, kill.

Anything to regain control.

"If you're angry at me, you should be," I tell her, my voice thick. "I should have been there sooner, no matter what. I owe you that much. Every time those motherfuckers hurt you, that's on me. If you want me to stop, I will. You can take your time?—"

"I don't need sweetness right now." Her eyes well up, but they're sterner than ever as she holds her head high like the queen she is. "I don't want you to be thoughtful and kind and patient. I just…"

"Say it." I press her palm to my cheek and force her to meet my gaze. "Tell me what you need, and it's yours. Anything."

Leaning back against the wall, she sighs and closes her eyes. Her fingers stroke the side of my jawline, as if she is trying to memorize me just as I did her minutes ago. With her thumb brushing the corner of my mouth, she suddenly stops. I am willing to risk my fucking soul for her when she opens her eyes again.

Instead, she requests something far more dangerous. "I want you to fuck me," she says. "Hard. I don't want to feel anything but you."

I lose all sense of reason as my cock battles the last shred of common sense in my brain. She's traumatized and battered. A good, boyfriend, lover, whatever-we-are, would tuck her into bed with some warm milk or some shit. Tell her to wait until the morning. Be the hero.

But I know her. I know that she wouldn't ask this of me lightly, not unless…

She needed it badly enough to beg.

Unless she needed me.

And I'll be damned if I'll deny her any damn thing.

No matter what.