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I’d just sent Fang’s, with its pretty, shiny paintwork, into the gravel.
“I’m sorry,” I yelped, backing up. “I didn’t mean to take that out on you. It’s not even about you. It’s about…”
He loomed over me, strong strides swallowing up the distance between us in an instant. With his face mostly in shadow, he was terrifying. A giant beast of a man, power in every muscle, a predator stalking its tiny, mouthy prey.
My back hit a brick wall.
Nowhere else to run.
“I’m sorry,” I tried again.
The distance between us disappeared, eaten up by his enormous presence. He crowded me in, face bloodied and battered. Chest heaving either from the fight or from chasing me, I had no idea. His ice-blue eyes pinned me to the wall as much as his body did.
No escape.
Nothing to do but pay for my crime.
Fang dropped to his knees and circled his arms around the backs of my thighs. His face pressed into my belly as he hugged me tight. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so fucking sorry, Pix.”
I froze, staring down at the massive man on his knees for me, begging my forgiveness.
“It was that guy at the bar that night, wasn’t it? The night I left you there…”
A lump rose in my throat swiftly. “Caleb. I went home with him. He had friends waiting.”
An unearthly sound ripped from his body. Something between a howl of pain and a roar of outrage.
It made one thing clear.
He was in agony. Not from the injuries Kian had inflicted on him. But from the blame he’d placed squarely on his own shoulders.
“It’s my fault. Everything that happened that night could have been prevented if I’d just stayed.” His guilt shuddered through his body as he held on to me like I was his life raft, the only thing keeping him from crumpling.
A tear slipped down my cheek, and I clutched the back of his head, holding him to me. “It’s not your fault.” The tie keeping his long hair back had come loose during the fight, and now I stroked my fingers through the sweat-soaked lengths, trying to comfort him.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered, pressing his lips to my belly. “I’m so fucking sorry. I let you down.”
I shook my head into the darkness, even though he wouldn’t see it. “I let myself down.”
His lips found the tiny slip of skin showing between my cropped shirt and jeans. I gasped at the contact, his lips hot against my belly. He trailed kisses across every inch of the gap, his hands sliding up from the backs of my thighs, over my ass, to my lower back, holding me in place.
I dropped my head back against the wall, reveling in the familiar feel of him, as desperate to take the guilt from him as he was to take it from me.
His kisses turned open-mouthed, tonguing at the flat planes of my stomach and belly button.
He found the button on my fly and raised his head, blue eyes seeking my permission. “Let me make it up to you.”
The slaps and kicks and cheers from the continuing fights filtered back, but there was no one nearby. The darkness would shroud us from any eyes that happened to look back this way.
I wasn’t sure I would ever have sex again, but that wasn’t what Fang was offering.
Caleb and his friends had certainly not touched me like this. So gently and sweetly. They hadn’t asked permission the way he was, down on his knees, begging to let him make it up to me in the only way he knew how.
Giving me all the power, even though he was twice my size.
I nodded, a trickle of fear, replaced by a breath of desire.
He was beautiful like this, with the darkness softening his scars and harsh lines. But then he’d always been beautiful to me.