Page 8

Vaughn just kept staring at me.
Guilt punched me right in the stomach.
I turned away.
A few feet from my bedroom door, Kian jogged ahead, opening it so Fang could carry me through. Kian and Vaughn followed, the three big men inviting themselves into my room.
I raised an eye at Vaughn and Kian. “I need a shower.”
It was only then they seemed to realize where they were. Kian nodded respectfully and moved toward the door.
But Vaughn stood his ground. “We need to talk about what happened tonight and where we’re going from here. I don’t know about the rest of you, but this isn’t some revenge game anymore. Caleb is dangerous. I fucked up tonight, taking you there.”
“So did I.” Fang clutched me tighter. “I should have never let you go back in that house, Pix. I’m so fucking sorry.”
They were both ridiculous. Neither of them had done anything wrong. I looked at Kian, paused in the doorway. “You got anything you want to unnecessarily apologize for?”
Fang and Vaughn frowned, but Kian’s lips curled up in a half-grin. “I’m really sorry I was a little off-key on that Taylor Swift track the other day. Those high notes get me every time.”
I fought back a snigger, but Vaughn and Fang remained unimpressed.
I sighed. “Neither of you are at fault. Stop taking the blame for my actions. I’m a big girl. I can admit when I fucked up. It’s not your job to stop bad things happening to me. Especially when it’s me who put myself in that situation.”
Vaughn seemed like he wanted to argue, but I gave him the fiercest ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ expression that I could muster up, and he left the room with a shake of his head.
Kian watched him go, then turned back to me. “Take your time in the bathroom. Get warm. I’ll use the one downstairs.”
I thanked him. Then I was alone with Fang, for the first time since I’d blurted out I loved him.
I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my lips to his neck. “Hey, you,” I said softly.
He carried me through the bathroom door and sat me on the vanity. But when he pulled back, he didn’t look particularly happy. “Don’t ‘hey you’ me.”
I peered up at him, surprised by his tone. “You mad at me?”
“Yes.” Then his shoulders slumped, and he brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “No. I don’t know. Don’t tell me it’s not my job to protect you, Pix. It is my fucking job. If I’m your guy…one of your guys…” He frowned trying to label himself.
“You’re my guy,” I assured him quickly. “My only guy. Kian and I are just friends. Vaughn is…I don’t know. My brother, I guess.”
Even I heard the uncertainty in my tone.
He strode across the bathroom to the shower and turned on the hot water. “You rode my face while club girls sucked his cock. Hell, Pix. You came that night because he told you to. That is not what people do with their brothers.” He waved a hand beneath the water and flinched at the temperature before he stepped back and offered it to me. “There you go. Scalding hot, just how you like it.”
I dropped the blanket, and Fang’s gaze dipped to the rips and tatters of my costume and my scratched-up skin beneath it.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I’m fine. Don’t look.”
But that was like telling the sun not to be bright.
Fang’s eyes traced every injury on my body. He slowly peeled off the last tatters of fabric, leaving me completely naked.
But I didn’t feel exposed the way I did when it was Caleb ripping my clothes off.
Fang’s lips touched the scratch on my neck and then ghosted over the graze on my shoulder. He kissed every scrape and bump, ending with the tiny cut at the corner of my mouth. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”
I put my fingertips to the sides of his bearded face and stroked. “I know.”
“Even share you.”