Unleashing Sin - A. M. Wilson Page 0,57

while,” she wheezes.

“What’s wrong?” I demand, gently removing the cover from her neck so I can check her over. “Are you hurt?”

She shifts again. “It’s nothing I, arrgghh, can’t handle.”

“Bullshit, blossom, your pillow is damp with sweat. What hurts?”

“My stomach.” She gasps, her hands clutching her abdomen. “But it’s … it’s normal for me.”

My eyes roam her body again, and my hands flutter uselessly above her. I’m strung tight with the need to do something to help. “Tell me what you need.”

“Nothing, Alex. I don’t need anything—ahh.”

Fuck this.

In a fluid movement, she’s up in my arms, and I’m swinging us both into the bed. Resting my back against the pillows, head against the headboard, I settle her curled up form in my lap. Her ass nestles against my groin, and my thighs and chest are just large enough to cocoon her there. I swing the blanket up over both of us and use my hand to press deep circles into her lower back.

“Tell me what helps,” I beg in her ear as her body trembles in my grip.

“That feels good,” she mumbles as she arches into my hand.

I keep up the motion and some of her trembling stills.

I can’t ignore the way her head fits snugly beneath my chin or that she’s the perfect size to fit in my arms.

Her fingers comb through the base of my beard and tickle my neck. I have to fight my body’s natural response to having her tucked in so close and touching me in that innocent way she does.

“Talk to me, blossom.”

She shakes her head against me and continues stroking.

I tense my arms around her. “Talk to me. Don’t shut down on me now. Not after all the progress you’ve made. I know you’ve already had a shit day—”

“It’s not that,” she interrupts.

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

“You are thinkin’ about it, though. If your pain is related to your life before, then every time it strikes it’s makin’ you think about it.”

She shifts. “Then I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, too bad,” I growl, doing a shit job at hiding my frustration. “You’re in pain, and not the mental kind. Physical, real pain that I may be able to help you do something about if you weren’t bein’ damn stubborn all of a sudden. Let me help you.”

“You can’t,” she fires back.

I stroke my fingers down the bare skin of her arm. “Please,” I beg on a whisper.

Her head tips back, those fingers sifting through the coarse strands at my chin, curling and flexing against my face, and her gorgeous eyes peer into mine with a mixture of curiosity and dread.

She doesn’t release my stare as she shares, “A year or two ago. That’s when it started. The men weren’t usually gentle.”

My body locks as her words register. Keep it together Sin, plays in my head on repeat. Hearing her voice aloud some of the horror she’s been through, and that’s still fucking affecting her, sends rage flaming through my body. I’m suddenly hot and sweating with the effort to hold it together when all I really want is to tear something apart with my bare hands. It physically hurts to look in her eyes as she shares this, but I can’t make myself turn away. She’s stripping herself bare for me.

I have to swallow twice to clear the lump in my throat. “We need to take you to a doctor. Tonight. I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

That strength in her eye wilts into fear. She pulls her hand from my beard and plants them in my chest as leverage to push away. “What? No. We aren’t going anywhere.”

I watch cautiously as her gaze darts around the room. I don’t know if she’s looking for a weapon or an exit, but she isn’t going to find much of either here.

“You’re lyin’ in my bed writhing in pain, and you don’t want to go to a doctor? What if there’s an easy fix? You’d rather sit here and suffer?”

She turns back to me, sending her hair flying out behind her. “I’d rather not be seen by someone who knows me!”

“And I’d rather not watch you struggling to take a deep breath because it hurts so fuckin’ bad.”

“Then leave!” she cries.

That flat-out pisses me off.

“I will never leave you,” I growl. “Haven’t I shown you that? I’m by your side if we’re outside this apartment, and if we’re not, I’m merely steps away. Goin’ to the doctor is