Stripped Down

He curses. Some day, when Angel meets the right woman and settles down, he’s going to be an amazing daddy. “She left you alone?”

I really didn’t want to tell him this, but he needed to know. “My latest stepdaddy came over. He said she’d sent him and I didn’t know what to do. He had a key, so I couldn’t keep him out. He said that since my mom wasn’t there, I’d do.”

Angel rolls, coming to his feet so swiftly he’s a blur.

“Angel?”

He makes a rough gesture with his hand. My own are shaking, but I need to finish this.

“He raped me. Then he rented me out to his friends on the weekends. It was three months before my mom came home and she’d met your dad while she’d been gone. She told me were leaving LA and moving to Lonesome.”

“Did she know, Rose?”

I stared at him. His face has gone cold and distant, his fists bunching on his thighs.

I suck in a breath. Finish it. “I don’t know. I suspect she had to have figured it out when she came back. She got us out of there. She tried, Angel.”

She hadn’t tried one hundred percent, and her efforts had been ineffective, but she’d done what she could. Her own head had been in a bad place, and she couldn’t give me what she didn’t have. Angel, however, isn’t buying it. I’ve never seen a man hold himself so still.

“I’ll kill them for you.”

Angel’s words aren’t lip service. They’re a vow. A promise. He’d walk out of this room right now and commit murder for me.

“I got out. My mom got us out and we came here. I was angry, sixteen, and scared. The Mendoza money meant security, and my mom earned it by having sex with your dad. I was grateful to her, Angel. She was making sure we never had to go back there, that I never had to whore myself out again.”

“That was not your fault,” he says hoarsely. “And I’m gonna repeat my offer. Give me their names, and I’ll kill them. Fuck, give me the address of the trailer park, and I’ll take it apart and find them. They’re dead.”

His body radiates lethal intent. He’d kill for me, and he wouldn’t hesitate. He’s a scary-ass bastard when he’s mad.

“It’s over,” I tell him. “But I don’t like being held down or tied up.”

His fist slams into the wall with lethal force. “They’re out there. That’s unacceptable.”

Four men took three months of my life from me. I won’t give them anything more, but for the first time I wonder about Angel. He spent four years serving in the military. He’s probably killed. Probably seen far worse things. How much do I know about him?

“Would you really hunt them down and kill them?”

He crouches before me, his hands on my knees beneath the sheet. “Don’t fucking doubt it. Tell me to do it.”

I almost wish I could, but I’m not that girl who was locked up inside a trailer like some kind of dog. That girl changed. She moved on, inked over the bad shit, and now I’ve got a chance at a new life.

I pat the empty space beside me. “Come back to bed?”

“Rose—”

I know. He doesn’t do emotions. He dominates. This after-sex snuggling crap isn’t part of his playbook. “I want five minutes,” I tell him. I’d like his secrets and his love, but I’ll settle for what I can have.

He gets on the bed with me. I’ll give him that. And then when he wraps his arms around me and holds me, I let myself go.

ANGEL

Rose curls against me, her hand parked possessively on my chest, and the sound of her steady, sleepy breathing shouldn’t make me want to scream. But it fucking does, that’s the fucking truth, and she’ll have to fucking get over it. Since it’s summer, it stays light until almost eight at night, and that’s the only saving grace. If the room was dark… not thinking about it. Not going there.

At least she’s in front of me and not behind. I count in my head, because she’s asked for five minutes and that’s the least I can do. I must be doing something right, because she’s asleep before I hit three hundred.

I should have Rose tattoo the word bastard on my forehead. Or my dick. I bet she’d do it too, because as soon as she falls asleep, I get out of bed and I leave. It’s not like I sleep that much anyhow. My body’s learned to get by on a couple hours a night, whatever I can grab. I’m not the type to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon, or collapse into a happy post-orgasm stupor. Rose’s breath shudders out of her in a weird sound that’s part snort, part sigh. It’s cute.

I stand by the side of the bed and mostly I’m itching to go. I swipe my clothes from the floor and yank on my stuff. Jeans. Socks. Boots. Once I’m covered up, ready to run or fight if I have to, I can take a deep breath. Slow things down and find my T-shirt and my belt. The cotton still smells like her. It’s also still damp, but I like the idea of wearing what she wore, my skin touching where hers did. It can be one more guilty secret I add to my collection.