Page 33 of Laila Manning (Shadeport Crew #3)

H er breathing was even, the soft flow of it branding my skin with each exhale. It assured me she was alive and well, whole . Because without feeling her breath, or the steady beat of her heart, my brain wouldn’t believe she was fine.

There was a disconnect between rational thought and fear. And I was stuck living somewhere between them since meeting her.

When Carly wanted to take her away from my side at the gala, I protested, tightening my hold on her in a physical rebuttal to the idea. Then Laila had assured me she would be fine, a mere fifty feet away while I stayed and finished my conversation.

She didn’t realize I was clinging to her for my own sanity, not just protecting hers.

So, I let her go. Gave her space to spread her wings and find her footing with her bravery fully in place and the strong and fiery Carly at her side.

One interaction followed another, and a call to duty arose that I couldn’t refuse; Ryker was pulled from our central location in the room and into the shadows to conduct business.

I was his second, so I couldn’t stand outside of that circle during that conversation. I had no choice.

Ten minutes.

That was all it had been from the moment she left my side until her panicked and agonized face came through the crowd where she clung to Elora, searching for me.

Ten minutes, and she was broken.

She wouldn’t tell me what happened, instead, demanded that I make her forget all about it with my touch.

With my body.

She had no fucking clue how hard it was to resist the urge to slide deep inside of her for the first time, after holding back for months with nothing but small glimpses into the pleasure I’d find in bed with her.

The only reason I denied her when she begged me so prettily was that she deserved so much better for our first time. She deserved romance, and worship, and things I didn’t have time to give her with the busy party carrying on right outside the door.

Instead, I gave her what I could.

I gave her power.

Watching her ride my thigh and make herself come was one of the most erotic things I’d ever seen before. And I hardly touched her at that moment.

But tasting her.

Jesus fuck, tasting her sweet pussy for the first time, spreading her thighs and pushing her body into ecstasy again so soon after her first orgasm, was pure selfishness on my part.

Sure, she enjoyed herself. But I did it for myself .

I needed to taste her, to keep myself from bucking into her right then and there like a wild animal, intent only on leaving a part of myself inside of her body. Claiming her as mine.

By the time we got back to the barracks, she was dead on her feet from worry and orgasms. Leaving me to carry her into her apartment, strip her down and dress her in her cute, innocent little pajamas and tuck her into bed.

I had planned to kiss her goodnight and leave her to rest, so I didn’t encroach on her safe space too much with my presence.

But as I turned to leave, she rolled over and held her hand out to me with her sleepy smile on her perfect face.

“Stay with me.” She whispered, “Please.”

As if I could have denied her request.

Never mind the fact that the idea of leaving her side at all, after how I found her at the gala, felt like I was physically putting myself into a grinder and losing parts of my soul in tiny chunks.

So, I stayed.

I stripped down to my boxers, and slid in behind her, molding my body to hers and feeling her unusual calmness settle into my bones like it was my own.

I was always calm.

Calculated and in control.

Yet from the first moment I touched Laila, I was a wreck. I was unhinged. I was desperate. For whatever she would give me, while trying to protect her fragile soul and heart from the darkness inside of me.

It was exhausting and rewarding in ways I’d never experienced before.

It was the more I’d gone my whole life without feeling that others did when they found love.

It was everything .

She was everything.

And she was hurt. She had been hurt, because of a number of men that I couldn’t even comprehend.

And believe me, I had tried. I had forced myself to do as much digging into Laila’s past as I could.

Beating heads together and peeling skin from muscle in search of a list of names to turn my attention to so I could offload some of the fury in my heart from her pain.

But there was no list.

The men who had abused and assaulted her were so plentiful, there was simply no way to track them down. She had been abused so regularly that the faces of men who went into her room blurred until the people I interrogated simply couldn’t name them.

It was single-handedly the most helpless feeling I’d ever endured before.

I had to do something. I had to even the score; it was what I fucking did . It was what was ingrained in my DNA at this point in life.

So as the early morning sunlight started peeking in through her blinds, I slid from her bed, having not slept a wink as my mind ran all night long, and began my search for answers.

And stop number one was in Ryker’s kitchen.

I walked in, surprised to find Jed and Carly at the counter, both nursing cups of coffee like they’d been up all night long as well. The bags under Jed’s eyes said there was far more at play between the two of them than I was privy to, so I didn’t bother asking.

“How is she?” Carly asked, skipping pleasantries.

Before I could answer, Ryker walked in, tying the string on a pair of pajama pants as he flicked his glance at all of us.

“You all look like shit.” He went to the fancy coffee machine and pushed the button, filling a cup and handing it to me before starting another for himself. “How’s Laila?” He asked .

“She’s fine.” I responded, angry, that they all seemed to know how close to losing it she came last night. “But I need to talk to Ellie.”

“She’s on her way down.” He replied, turning his attention to Jed and Carly, “You two figure your shit out?”

Carly wouldn’t meet Ryker’s stare, and Jed just clenched his jaw. “We’re fine.” He turned his attention back to me, deflecting as usual. “What the fuck happened last night?”

I bristled at the accusation in his tone and fought the urge to throw my cup of steaming coffee at his face for the fun of it. If Carly wasn’t in the splash zone, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

“Enough.” Ellie called, walking into the room wearing a cream-colored lounge set and looking rested, but angry. “I won’t have any of your bullshit in my kitchen at this hour.” She pointed her finger at Jed and then turned to me. “How’s Laila?”

“Will everyone stop fucking asking me that?” I snapped, clenching my jaw to keep from screaming through the anxiety building inside of me with each passing minute spent away from her.

I took a deep breath, noting Ryker’s glare over his wife’s shoulder as she leaned back against his chest and tried again.

“She’s sleeping. She has been out all night. ”

“Good.” Ellie nodded.

“I want to know what happened.” I cut to the chase. “Before you brought her to me.”

Ellie sighed and flicked a glance over at Carly, “Let’s start at the beginning then, because I only have part of the story.”

I turned to Carly, “What happened when you two got to the bar?”

She ducked her head again, and Jed tensed, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it looked like Carly brushed away a tear as she pushed her hair back and sat up straighter. “She talked me off a ledge about Jed and his obnoxious flirting—”

“Flirting!” Her boyfriend roared, rolling his eyes. “I was fucking talking to the wife of a—”

She cut him off, dominating the conversation, “I don’t care.

” She snapped, and he huffed, closing his mouth as if he were physically fighting back the words trying to escape.

“And then I felt—” She paused and swallowed, losing some of the bravado, “sick. So, she went to find Jed while I went to the bathroom. That was the last I saw of her.”

I turned to Jed, “What happened when she got you?”

“She didn’t.” He sighed, “Ellie came and found me, but said you’d already taken Laila home. I never saw her after she went to the bar.”

I turned back to Ellie and put my hands on my hips, fighting the urge to scream at them all for the fucking answers.

“So, what happened between the bar and you finding her?” Ellie’s body was tense where she leaned against Ryker, and I instantly felt dread come over me.

“Someone fucking hurt her.” I stated thickly, fighting emotions from cutting off my voice completely.

“Not last night, they didn’t.” Elora whispered angrily as her eyes misted, “I don’t know when it happened. But I know who it was.”

“Who?”

She swallowed, and Ryker ran his hands up and down her arms, giving her silent support, showing she had already told him what she knew.

“I found her cornered in the darkness, and she looked like a wild animal.” She shuddered, “I haven’t seen that look in her eyes since you rescued her from that brothel that night.”

My body tightened as I got closer to a name. A face. A body to enact some vengeance on. “Who, Elora?” I demanded again.

“Senator Lupold.” She spat out, grimacing at the mere mention of his name, and my blood ran cold. “I don’t know what happened before I got there, but he recognized her. He didn’t know where from, though. And she was ready to tear herself limb from limb to get away from him.”

My heartbeat echoed in my ears as the slimy face of that man blurred my vision, in time with the memory of that day on the sidewalk.

She was stopped outside his house. Frozen in time. Staring up at the brick exterior in a daze and when I asked her what she was doing outside the Senator’s home, she grimaced at the title.

“That man did something to Laila.” Elora croaked as she fought her emotions. “I don’t know what it was exactly, but it was something catastrophic.”

“I’ll kill him.” Jed sneered, glancing up at me. “ We will kill him.”