Page 109 of Dirty Beasts: Chance

She blinks rapidly at me. “Free?”

I nod. “Yeah. You’re free.”

She swallows hard. “I just didn’t want to hurt anymore,” she whispers.

I reach out a hand toward her, but she shies away, and I drop it back into my lap. “You won’t be hurt anymore, Naomi. I fucking swear.”

She just looks at me. Assessing. She meets my eyes for a moment, and in that moment, I see behind the curtain—I see a woman who has just done the most courageous thing I can think of.

Something that took balls of fucking steel.

And that was just her escape. Getting in the car with me just now? Defying her father to his face?

I can’t imagine the courage that must have required.

I find a huge well of respect for her filling up inside me. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, what I’m going to do…but I just know down to my balls and bones that my future is tied up with hers.

Why, how, hell if I know. But I feel it as surely as I know the lines on my palms, the angles of my face in the mirror.

I’m starting to understand Rev, Kane, and Chance a little bit, suddenly. Not that I’d ever say that to them, not after I was so openly derisive. But…I feel drawn to her.

And more than anything, I feel a fierce, feral, violent drive to protect her. To make sure no one ever hurts her again.

It’s something in her eyes. In her stillness. In her fear of everything around her, every twitch of my hands. She shouldn’t be so afraid. She’s too beautiful to be so terrified, so deeply hurt.

She’s a wounded bird who deserves to fly.

I’ll take care of her.

Protect her.

And god help anyone who gets in my way.

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