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“Are you okay?” I ask, more urgency in my voice than I’d planned. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Trent looks cocky. And sexier than ever. “You’re welcome, Kitty Kat. You’re right—movingisa pain in the ass. But anything for you.”

I swallow hard, not sure if I like the anger in the voice. Or fear it. Or both. “Sorry. Thank you. For doing that for me.”

Trent walks past me. His gray shirt is dark with sweat and he smells like cologne. My pussy clenches in almost unwilling response.

“Was… was everything okay?”

“No, everything wasnotfucking okay. You told me you’d rented somewhere nice, but that you weren’t sure how long you could stay. You fucking lied, Kitty Kat.”

“I know, I—”

He cracks his neck side to side. “Never lie to me again. I mean it. Got that shithole of yours all emptied out. No thanks to that dickhead landlord of yours. Like doing business with somefucking Pablo Escobar complex. And what the fuck is with him calling you Margaret Hoover?”

Ohno.My ears buzz, my brain racing between telling the truth and coming up with a solidly believable lie.

But as he walks over to wash his hands in the kitchen sink, he seems pretty unbothered.

“I couldn’t afford anywhere better. Mom and Dad, they had some debts when they died. Things you didn’t know about. There was this investment thing. Someone they must have trusted but they had nothing in the end. I didn’t want you worrying, being distracted. I pay cash because that’s how I get paid, and called myself Margaret Hoover because I didn’t want anyone there knowing my name and they didn’t seem to care as long as you paid your rent. I didn’t want you to worry about me.” I shrug, trying to be as nonchalant about it as I can. And the thing is, it’s not acompletelie. So that’s good. Hopefully.

“You’re never going back there again, so I don’t care if he thinks you’re called Kim Fucking Kardashian. It makes shit for difference now.” He smiles that brilliant white smile, and I take my first deep breath in over four hours.

Trent dries his hands on a fresh dishcloth and pulls me close. He leans down to take me into a deep, passionate kiss, wrapping his bulging arms around me, pressing my breasts against his t-shirt. His tongue opens my mouth, and our breathing intensifies, as I pull back, taking a deep breath. Still so shocked that this is happening. “You should have told me though about it all and I want more details but right now, how about you help me with these bandages, Nurse Ratchet.”

“Shower first. Youstink,” I push his chest, but it’s cemented in place. A flea pushing an elephant.

He narrows his eyes and his expression darkens. “Careful, little girl. Your ass has to be screaming for mercy today. Yousureyou want to push me?”

I look up at him, feeling wide-eyed. Innocent. Just like a kid again. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t.”

He pinches my face possessively in one of his big hands. “I bet your ass isn’t the only thing that’s sore, either.”

He’s right about that. The screaming pain deep inside me ricochets through my body with every step I take. Between that and the throbbing fire on my ass, there’s not much that could entice me into another sparking right now.

“I’ll be good,” I whisper. “Promise.”

And Trent answers with one more greedy, dark kiss before striding out of the kitchen, leaving me there. Panties soaked. Head spinning.

Fourteen

Trent

“Ithought it would be easier the second time, but it isn’t,” she whispers, as she carefully and tenderly unpeels the medical tape from my skin. Her eyes shimmer with tears, and then she blinks them away, but unsuccessfully. Her eyes go damp as she looks at my wounds. “You’re so lucky to be alive.”

I know what she’s seeing. I can see them in the mirror behind me, reflected in the mirror over the sink in front of me. And it looks fucking awful, which it is. Two bullets tore right the fuck through me, missing all my vital organs by some fucking miracle, and exploding out the back of me like comets.

“What were youdoingout there?” she asks. She carefully unpeels another edge of tape on the next bandage.

What I was I doing? Dangerous shit for a good cause, at least that’s what I told myself.Notsomething I’m going to burden her with now, or maybe ever. “I can’t talk about it. Alright?”

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “But it’s just me. You can tell me anything.”

My heart fucking breaks. I want to tell her. I want to tell her everything. Always have, always will. But more than that, I want to protect her. To keep her safe from the world. My world, if necessary.

My nights are spent in visions of the waking nightmare that has been my life. Sleep comes in minutes, not hours, and only helps to make the flashbacks more vivid. The smell of singed flesh stronger, the cries of the guys in my group louder. Last breaths. Tears in the fucking dirt and sand.

Tell my mother…