understanding, I’d seen the mettle of the man.
And he was good.
Just like I’d known.
But I’d had to test.
I’d seen my father beat my momma too many times to just trust in this insanity of a mate bond. Sure, I felt like I knew him inside out, but there was so much I was learning, so much I had to process at the moment, that I wasn’t sure what I could trust. What was real and what was a part of this new madness that was the universe for me right now.
I remembered him slapping her, grabbing her by the hair, and dragging her down the stairs when she was five minutes later than she’d promised. I remembered her being degraded by him in front of his friends, being treated like a servant by him, and I’d just needed to make sure that the Mother knew what was best for me.
“You did that, didn’t you?”
I bit my lip. “Did what?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “That thing before you started sucking me off.”
I looked away, feeling guilty and annoyed that I couldn’t shield my goddamn thoughts.
He snorted. “Why did you do that?”
Because he sounded curious more than anything else, when I deserved his anger, I hunched my shoulders as I stared down at my knees. “I mean, I didn’t bring us here.”
“No, I think this is normal though.” He blinked. “Here I was, thinking our claiming was going to be like a gang bang, and now we’re in another place—”
I hummed. “Another time.”
“You think so?” he asked, peering around.
I nodded. “I think so.” Then, my lips twitched. “A gang bang, hmm? Are you disappointed?”
His grin was quick, like lightning, and it filled me with even more amusement than I already felt. It also took away my nerves and my embarrassment for what I’d done.
This was Austin.
So accepting.
So joyful, somehow, that it was impossible not to feel the same way around him.
“Yeah, I mean, never say never, right?”
I snickered. “We need to work up to that,” I murmured, need infiltrating my voice, even though I hadn’t really meant for it to.
“I figured as much.” He winked. “Give us time. We’ll get you ready for anything.”
I laughed outright at that, my grin making an appearance as I stared at his cheeky smile, at the light in his eyes that was for me and me alone.
I reached down, finding it impossible not to touch that smile, not to feel it against my fingers, and as I traced it with my pointer finger, I hummed, “I thought it would be like that too.”
“Was that why you were nervous?”
His gentle question had me hitching a shoulder. “I guess. I mean, maybe I’m kinkier than I thought. Mostly, I was nervous. I-I haven’t done it in so long—”
“A lot like riding a bike. You can’t forget how,” he told me.
I snorted. “You didn’t feel like a bike.”
His eyes twinkled again. “Glad to hear it. But you know what I mean.”
“I do, and while you’re not wrong, it was so long ago that it feels…” I blinked, because what I’d done with Kian was so different from how I’d acted with Austin.
I’d been a little ashamed of what we’d done the first time, because it was outside of marriage. It had hurt, and we’d had to hide, and I’d been terrified his mom would come back from work early and would catch us. I’d been petrified of being called a slut, of us being found out…
I couldn’t feel much more different now than I had back then.
In a good way.
I’d trusted Kian, or so I’d thought.
I’d loved him, or so I thought.
While those emotions weren’t negated in the face of what had just happened, I realized how different I was now. Almost night and day. Back then, Sabina had been innocent, hopeful, and trusting.
This Sabina? Free from pain at last, but I’d been through the grinder, I’d had to travel a long way to reach this point. I knew what pain was, had felt loss and grief, and I’d known what fear felt like—the kind of fear that made you choke up at night when you got into bed, because you were so damn scared, you felt like you could wet yourself.
My father never forgot.
He never had, never would, and I was his daughter. I’d shamed him. Shamed the family. That wouldn’t die.
But I could.
And only my death, in his eyes, would lessen the shame I’d brought to us.
I cleared my throat at the heavy thoughts, and when