Page 122 of Captive Audience

And I’d never wanted anything more.

46

ROOK

Icarried Asha to the shower like I should’ve before tearing off her panties and sinking in balls deep.

Instead, I’d fucked her hard against a wall—no finesse, no shame—with the blood of her dead rapist drying on my skin and clothes.

And she’d let me.

No. She’d wanted me to.

I didn’t know what to do with that. Perhaps Asha had already spent too much time in my depraved company.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She sighed and beamed at me with a blissed-out smile. “I’m much better than okay, gangster. You did good.”

With her thighs still locked around me and her breath hot against my shoulder, she felt so breakable in my arms. Yet she was the only thing in this world that could destroy me.

Fear, stark and cold, hit me like an uppercut.

If anything happened to her because I’d forced her into this life, I’d never come back from it.

I’d already suffered too much and lost too many.

Asha was too good, too special, to be exposed to the filth of the underworld.

Just like Niall had been.

In the bathroom, I set her on her feet gently, then quicklyremoved the rest of our clothes. I stepped into the steamy oversize shower, bringing Asha with me.

“You all right there, big guy? You look like you’re questioning your life choices. You won’t knock me up, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

She thought not using protection would worry me? Getting Asha pregnant would be a fucking dream.

I blinked and shook my head. “I know you’re on the Pill.”

“Of course you do.” She rolled her eyes. “You probably also know I needed antibiotics for tonsillitis in tenth grade.”

I gave her a weak smile, still haunted by my thoughts.

I needed to force them aside and focus on the gorgeous naked woman in front of me.

I took my time washing her. Not because she was dirty, but because I needed to keep her close, to touch her everywhere.

This thing between us was real. Asha trusted me with her body. And by some miracle, she was prepared to trust me with her heart, too.

I didn’t deserve it, not after the things I’d done. But there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d give her up.

I was doomed to spend my life fearing one of two outcomes: If Asha stayed with me, I could lose her like I’d lost Niall. If I let her go, I couldn’t protect her from assholes like Holbrook, Tate, and the criminals she investigated.

Seeing that fucker’s hand on her and the look of pain on Asha’s face from his fingers digging into her skin, it had flipped some primal switch inside me.

Something feral. Something beyond lethal and unhinged.

I reached for her wrist and lightly traced my fingers over the bruises there. “I should’ve kept him alive. Made his death last longer.”