the shower behind her, I swept her wet hair over her shoulder and away from her neck.
She startled, but then she leaned back into me and looked up. “Hi.”
Her eyelashes wet, her hair slicked back, water raining down on her bare breasts, she was so goddamn beautiful. My cock hard just looking at her, it took every ounce of control I had not to bend her over the bench and sink inside her tight cunt. “You’re mine.”
Her arm came up and she grasped the back of my neck. “Since the first day I saw you.”
I admitted a truth. “I don’t want to share you.”
Frowning, she dropped her arm and turned to face me. “You don’t have to.”
“When we’re alone, no I don’t. But beyond these decks, I do.” And I needed to reconcile that. Fast.
The lines between her eyebrows didn’t ease. “I’ll do my best to keep you away—”
I put my fingers over her lips. “You won’t do anything except be yourself. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Her hands landed on my biceps, and I liked how she always reached for me there. Whether she realized it or not, she was reaching for my strength. And that’s exactly what I wanted to be for her. Her strength.
She pulled her lips between her teeth, then spoke in a rush. “I have an agent and manager and assistants who take care of…” One of her hands fluttered through the air. “The business side.”
“I’m not talking about your career. I’m not going to interfere with that unless you want or need me to.” I grasped her chin. “I’m talking about us. About you.”
Her muscles relaxed and she leaned into me, but she bit her lip. “Okay.”
Her body, her voice, her easy submission to me, it made my cock rock-fucking-hard, and I wanted her tightness around me. More, I wanted her falling apart from my touch. Using my thumb, I released her lip from the hold of her teeth. “Only I get to bite these full lips, Songbird.” I leaned down to kiss her.
She turned her head. “I have to tell you some things before… before we go any further.”
Fighting not to tense my muscles, I rose to my full height and stilled. “What things?”
“You know this was all my fault,” she whispered.
“Stop it.” With a gentle hand, I held her hair under the water.
Her eyes suddenly haunted, she looked up at me. “I was the one who told Kyle that you and Vance were twins.”
“It’s over. It doesn’t matter now.” And Abernathy saw both me and Vance that night before I beat him unconscious.
“No,” she insisted. “I have to speak.”
I didn’t want to hear what she needed to get off her chest, but I also wasn’t going to deny her anything. She was alive, she was here, and I was fucking grateful. “You’re under no obligation to tell me anything.” I grabbed the shampoo, lathered some in my hands and began washing her hair. So many years wasted I could’ve been doing this exact thing.
“I want to.” Her hands held my arms tighter.
I hated the duress in her voice. “This can wait.”
“No.” Defying me with a slight shake of her head, something she wouldn’t have done a decade ago, she began to speak. “That next day, after that night, Vance took me to Leo’s office. He’d made a deal with him. He told Leo I would still fulfill my contract if Leo made Kyle go away, and I guess Leo believed him, but what neither of them knew was that I would’ve shown up anyway. I had time booked in the recording studio and they already had songs lined up for me and I wanted to sing. I was young and naïve, yes, but I knew any contract with Trinity would be my ticket out of poverty.” She looked up at me with the weight of a ten-year-old guilt. “You can understand that, can’t you?”
I grasped the side of her face. “You don’t have to justify signing that contract.” It was past time that we got all of this out, once and for all. “It wasn’t your fault that Abernathy and his assistant were opportunistic pieces of shit. Unfortunately for them, they told the wrong person their intentions. I don’t regret defending you, and I’d do it again. Without hesitation. As far as the contract, even if I’d never met Abernathy, I still would’ve been angry about it because I was, and still am, protective of you. But I would’ve gotten over it