Shadow Man (Grayson Duet #1) - Catherine Wiltcher Page 0,62

see who could make me bleed first. Truth or dare,” she sobs, her face collapsing under the weight of the memory. “Truth or fucking dare. Do you want to know what my version of that game was? Do you want to know which one they made me play? My truth was them choking and beating me until I passed out. My dare was seeing how many of their cocks I could take at the same time.”

“No!” I roar, as all my walls come crashing down. Every emotion I keep locked away inside is yelling out for attention. “No!”

“Yes, yes, yes!” she screams back, forcing me once again to accept her pain. Still, I throw my hands above my head, ramming the crooks of my elbows against my ears to block her out. “Do you feel me now, Joseph?” I hear her demanding. “Are you going to keep on deluding yourself, or is every part of you finally realizing what I am?”

Broken.

Unlovable.

The same fucking things I see when I look in the mirror.

I drop my arms and swing back around. “You think any of this makes you less of a woman to me?”

“Yes!”

“Never!” I take her face between my hands, ignoring the torture that’s splitting apart my shoulder and crash my lips down onto hers. I drive my tongue so deep into her mouth it’s as if I’m exorcising her demons. I drink her tainted sweetness like it’s an elixir. I feel her arms form a chain around my neck, her soft breasts pressing tight against the most damaged part of both of us, and I know I’m close to losing my mind for her. “Give me your pain,” I say harshly, breaking away. “Give me your fucking pain, Anna. Every nightmare. Every moment of doubt. Every scar… I want them all, and then I’ll heal them with my truth. I won’t stop healing them, because you are my truth, Anna. Your flaws are so fucking flawless. Forgive me, and I will make this so right you’ll wonder why you ever gave the past so much power in the first place.”

This time when I take her mouth, I temper my pace and violence, savoring the taste of her more than my possession.

“I thought I’d lost you in the car,” she says, clinging to my neck as we go down together. “I thought you’d died in my arms.”

“You will never lose me, Anna.” I take her jaw between my hands again. “You can never strip the light of her shadow, not unless you choose to let the darkness in. But you burn too bright and too brilliant to allow it, sweetheart. For as long as you want me to, I will walk this earth with you, protecting you—”

“I can’t give you what you want,” she confesses, her face breaking all over again. “Sex… I’m so scared. I may never be able to—”

“Then I’ll wait. I’ll wait a thousand lifetimes,” I tell her, meaning every word. “I will love this body whole again, but only if you allow it… Will you allow it, Anna?”

She nods, eyes wide and frightened, but trusting. So fucking trusting, that I want to take that fragility and build a fortress around it, and then hire a couple of fire-breathing dragons to patrol the airspace for eternity.

I follow the curves of her jaw with my fingertips, gathering up her loose tears on the way, smoothing strands of gold from her face. And then I kiss her one more time. As soft and gentle as a man like me can manage, which is still forceful enough to make her moan into my mouth. She’s the twister I’ve been waiting on, Cash. I’m so fucking sure of it.

It’s basic.

Deep-rooted.

Her rightness just sealed the fucking deal.

27

Anna

I can sense the stillness in a moment again. How could I have existed without it for so long? The notes are longer, thicker, and less staccato. All the bad stuff can’t touch me in here.

My body’s not used to it, though. My muscles keep twitching with inactivity, and my brain’s like an overexcited child. Yet, here I am. Lying in a white bathtub, in a dead devil’s lair somewhere in the middle of Colombia, watching the steam rise and the water turn from clear to opaque—recognizing that I’ve been running scared for too long, and that maybe I need to accept it and appreciate the silence, and then roll in it like catnip for a while.

My last thought makes me smile. I don't care about the