Best of 2017

“I’m coming with you,” he growls from behind me as he grabs my ass through my dress.

I shiver and look over my shoulder. His grey eyes are hard like steel, and that perfect jaw of his is like stone. I push through the dressing room and hang the dress on the hook. He locks the door behind him and sits on the only chair.

Vaughn is hotter than any guy I’ve dated. Not that I’ve dated tons. He’s definitely way out of my league. I’m simple and plain and fairly on the innocent side. Vaughn is far from simple. He’s complex and layered and tricky. And he eats innocent for dinner.

My gaze falls to his sculpted chest that’s barely hidden behind the stretched white fabric of his T-shirt. I know that hiding behind the shirt just over his heart is an anatomically correct tattoo of a black heart with my name in the middle.

I’d been horrified when he showed me the tattoo just three weeks after we started dating. My mother was always against tattoos. I grew up getting lectured that you should never permanently mark up your skin. Especially not with someone’s name. If she knew Vaughn had ‘Letty’ scrawled across his flesh forever, she’d have a coronary.

I jerk my eyes to the red dress and turn my back to him. He watches me with narrowed eyes in the mirror. I try not to focus on him but become distracted by the dark bruise on my throat I’d tried desperately to cover with makeup. It’s times like these that I begin to regret my two-month relationship with him. As much as I love him buying things for me and showing my body pleasure it’s never known, I can’t help but feel slightly trapped.

I mean, he has my name inked up on him for crying out loud.

“Babe,” he growls. “We don’t have all day. I have business shit to take care of later.”

I flash him a quick smile in the mirror that doesn’t reach my eyes as I begin peeling off my jeans and shirt. By business, he means drugs. I know he sells the hard stuff. I’ve tried to stay out of it but on occasion, he’s done deals in front of me.

I pull the red material up my body and situate it. It’s a tube-top dress and molds against every curve on my body. I look like a skank. My lip curls up to tell him this, but then his heat is up against me from behind. His erection pokes into my back as he grabs my breasts. Our eyes meet in the mirror and his smoldering one weakens me.

“You look so fucking hot,” he praises.

“It’s a little tight,” I breathe.

He smirks and I loosen up. But that’s until I start to worry about other men seeing me dressed this way. He hates when they look at me, which is why I don’t fool around too much with my makeup or cute outfits. Vaughn thinks I’m beautiful when I’m plain and boring. I don’t need to doll myself up for other men.

His palms slide up the outer sides of my thighs and he urges the dress up to my hips. When he starts to pull down my panties, I let out a nervous laugh.

“Not here, Vaughn,” I hiss, my throat heating with embarrassment.

His eyes become hard in the mirror. He pinches my tit through the material causing me to yelp in pain. My eyes well with tears. From time to time, he gets rough with me but it usually ends with him kissing away the hurt and being super sweet. He grabs a handful of my hair and yanks my head back. His hot breath tickles my ear as he spits out his word. “Here.”

His other hand yanks my panties down my thighs. When he starts to bend me forward, I fight against him. What if someone hears and they kick us out?

Crack!

My forehead slams against the mirror and I black out. When I come to, he’s fucking me from behind. A massive headache is thundering in my head and my sex hurts from not being wet when he entered me. With shaky hands, I press them against the mirror and push away to regard my face. Blood trickles down from the left side of my forehead down over my eyebrow. A wave of dizziness washes over me. I start to collapse but Vaughn’s powerful arm holds me up. He grunts and then pulls out at the last minute. His cum shoots against the dress as he hisses in pleasure.

I can’t look at him.

What he just did is…

That’s rape, right?

My boyfriend just raped me?

Again.

Bile creeps up my throat and a tear slips out of my eyes. I’m still staring at my haggard face when I hear fabric ripping. He shreds the dress as he pulls it from my body. I would be horrified but I’m too dizzy to think too hard about it. He twists me around so I’m forced to look into his cold eyes. They quickly soften as he uses the red dress to wipe away the blood from my wound. It’s his tongue he uses to wipe away my tears.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his hot breath against my cheek. He trails soft kisses to my parted mouth. His kisses are sweet and apologetic but I’m numb. I don’t understand why he keeps doing this to me.

“I…I…why?” I ask, a sob caught in my throat.

He leans his forehead against mine and strokes my hair. “Sometimes I love you so much I lose my head. My mind turns black.”

His simple confession has me softening. He loves me. I sort of thought he did, but this is the first time he spoke of it.

“Vaughn…”

“Babe,” he whispers as he hugs me tight. “Let me love you. Don’t fight it at every turn.”

I sag against him. My heart hurts because the person who is able to single-handedly destroy me is also the person to fix me. I’m warm and safe in his loving embrace.

“You hurt me,” I accuse, more tears leaking out.

“I’m sorry. You know that.” He pushes his hand into his jeans pocket and retrieves a pill. “Here,” he coos. “Take this to take the edge off.”

I’m not one to do drugs but my head is throbbing and my heart aches so badly. I open my mouth and swallow the acrid pill dry.

He’s gentle as he helps me redress. Him being tender right now is almost as worse as him being rough. He once again wipes away some lingering blood with the dress that got us into this mess and then pulls my hair down in front of my eye to cover the wound.

“So pretty,” he praises. He tosses the soiled dress onto the floor, and I’m thankful I won’t have to ever look at it again.

With a firm grip on my elbow, he guides me out of the dressing room. Several women shopping stare at us as he all but drags me through the store. We start to pass by the racks of red dresses and bile rises up. Thank God I won’t ever have to look at them again. But then he jerks one off the rack before hauling me over to the register. The cashier won’t make eye contact as she rings up the dress.

“I thought you didn’t like it,” I murmur, tears once again threatening.

He releases his death grip on my elbow to pull out his wallet. “But you look downright fuckable when you wear it, baby,” he says with a wide grin that an hour ago would have made me crazy with need. Now all it does is make me shudder.

“Thank you,” I breathe.

The cashier makes a sound of disapproval but I don’t meet her stare. I can’t. I’m ashamed and embarrassed. If my mother knew he treated me this way, she’d probably kill him.

The medicine begins to work its way through my system on my empty stomach and the room spins. When I wobble on my feet, Vaughn chuckles and pulls me against him.

“I’ve got you, Letty. I will always have you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

GRAYSON

AFTER I PAY and give the clerk the address to my office, I search for Violet. Her eyes are haunted as she stares straight ahead. She’s stiff-shouldered and her skin is pale.

What the fuck?

I stalk over to her and kneel right in front of her. Her pretty brown eyes are lost. Those plump pink lips are positively kissable, but she’s in a zone. Trapped in a memory. I know far too well how that feels. It fucking sucks.

I cradle her face with my palms and tilt her head to look at me. “Violet, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Her eyes shimmer with tears, and a sound of despair groans from her throat. Without thinking, I press a kiss to her cheek and then her nose. Then to her forehead against a pal

e white scar. When I drag my nose against hers, her breath hitches. Our mouths are so close to kissing it makes me crazy.

“Gray,” she murmurs, her voice so damn soft.

I pull away and regard her with a frown. “What just happened?”

Her entire body shudders as shame crosses over her features. She darts her gaze past me while she worries her lip between her teeth. “Nothing.”

Fucking liar.

I refrain from rolling my eyes.

Instead, I indulge her.

“Okay,” I say with a sigh. “Let’s go grab some lunch.”

She doesn’t balk when I take her hand in mine and guide her out of the store. I want to take her someplace nice but the nicest place at the mall is a Mexican restaurant. Thankfully, they find us a round booth in the back corner away from everyone. I’m able to sit close to her with my hand still clutching hers.

I hate how zoned out she is. Whatever her past holds, I intend on shaking it out so I can inspect it. Someone hurt her. And I will hurt that someone.

It isn’t until after I’ve ordered our food and drinks that she seems to snap out of it. Her hand tries to pull from mine, but I grip it.

“You’re okay,” I assure her and give her hand a squeeze. “You’re safe now.”

Her eyes dart to mine and her cheeks blaze red. “Oh my God. I am so sorry for that.”

“Panic attack?”

She bites on her bottom lip and shrugs. “Something like that.”

I let out a heavy sigh and reach forward for a tortilla chip. “Friends open up to one another.”

This time, she’s the one letting out a heavy breath. “Some things are better left locked up in the past. Some monsters belong there.”

I’ll free her monsters.

Because once they’re free, I can find them and kill them.