my waist, bringing with it the overwhelming scent of coconut. My feet leave the ground a heartbeat later, and before I can even blink, I’m being placed onto a hard surface while a muscular body blocks me in, preventing me from falling.
I’m on the counter, sitting precariously beside a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
“Eat.” A sandwich appears beneath my nose, oozing peanut butter from the edges. “Eat.”
I eye the soft, pale surface. Of all the scenarios running through my head, this one didn’t even make the cut. A trick? A test?
“I’m not hungry,” I finally rasp.
He makes a gruff sound in his throat, and I finally gather the nerve to meet his gaze. A single cocked black eyebrow transforms the cold, icy expression I expect to find. He looks more irritated than anything. “You slept through the night,” he says. “It’s two in the fucking afternoon. You’re starving. Eat.”
My brain short-circuits, and I can’t argue. My lips part as he rams a corner of the sandwich between them. I bite down and chew.
The simple act triggers an avalanche of pain I’d been able to suppress until now. My throbbing left eye. My cheek. My jaw. My shoulder. Chewing hurts, and it’s painful to swallow.
Taking a hint, he sets the sandwich aside and grabs a spoon from the drawer. He shoves it directly into the jar of peanut butter and brings the mixture to my mouth.
“Eat.”
It’s easier to swallow without having to chew first. I take a careful lick. Then another. After that, he switches up the rhythm by presenting me with a glass of water before one more spoonful.
His eyes scan my face as I choke down each sampling, hunting for something. Whatever he finds in the end, makes him set the spoon aside once I’ve licked it clean. He raises a hand to my face next, but his demeanor keeps me from flinching. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this expression shaping his features, tightening the line of his mouth, and darkening those watchful eyes. The worst part? I can’t even begin to name it.
My confusion only grows as his thumb glides beneath my eye, and the mysterious emotion shifts. Now I recognize it. Rage. “A little higher. A little harder. He could have killed you.”
He says it so matter-of-factly and with a nonchalance that makes the overall statement even more chilling.
“Like you could have killed Gino?” I don’t know why I turn it on him. Why a part of me squirms, hating his attention. Though I haven’t seen my face yet, the need to minimize is ingrained within me as a mantra of sorts. This? This is nothing.
“Yes,” he says without an ounce of shame. He teases aside a lock of my hair, exposing more of my injuries to him. “Like I could have killed Gino. But Gino’s got a good hundred pounds on you, and I can tell you right now that he’s not fucked up half as bad as you are.”
I assume he’s joking, at first. But no, his eyes stare dead into mine, daring me to question.
“Are you an expert?”
“I know my own strength,” he counters. “What’s that saying? Pick on someone your own size. If Gino were anywhere near your size? I’d know better than to touch him. Not unless I wanted fucking prison.”
“He insulted your mother,” I point out. “You were angry.” I’m not sure whether I’m justifying his actions or pointing out the failure in his logic. There was nothing controlled about what he did. He lashed out purely on instinct. In rage.
He frowns, letting his hand fall from me. “He did,” he admits. “And he fucking deserved a fist to the face for that. But using that logic, what did you do, huh? It must have been pretty fucking bad, bunny.” He eyes me again in that indiscernible way, making my breathing hitch. “I wanted to shut Gino’s ass up and teach the fucker a lesson. But what he did to you? He wanted to hurt you—”
“Stop.”
“You know what Gino does to the girls who work for him?” he adds. “He treats them like shit. Makes them turn tricks to curry favor with whoever he wants. Rich fuckers. Businessmen. Even the cops. Someone like that deserves to be beaten so badly he can barely fucking walk, not—”
“I’m fine.”
“Oh?” He rears back, an eyebrow cocked. His thumb finds my chin, manipulating my face so that he can view me from a different angle. “Fine,” he echoes harshly. “You