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Z ip watched her drive away, trying to decide if he should go after her or go home. She was fighting against the getting to know him stage. Why? She seemed interested, but when things got bad, she froze him out.

“What are you going to do?” Trip asked.

Zip huffed out a breath. “I don’t know.”

“Sure you do. You’re going after her. I can see it on your face.”

“Am I that obvious?”

Trip nodded. “Yep. Go find out what’s bugging her. It sounds like she’s had a hard life.”

Zip let go of a heavy sigh. He could walk away. There would be no harm. But he would never forgive himself.

The idea of never seeing her again wasn’t pleasant. They may not end up together, but he wanted a chance.

He pulled in front of the restaurant and spied her car parked down the block. She was home. His palms were damp as his nerves increased. Being this nervous hadn’t happened in a long time. Even going in on a mission didn’t feel like this. The stakes were higher with Talia. He realized she had the ability to crush him.

He didn’t want to lose her. Not yet. Maybe this would be the end. They’d go their separate ways and never see each other again. That would be okay. No, it wouldn’t. He didn’t want this to be over.

* * *

Talia was so embarrassed. Having Zip that close, the intensity in his eyes burning through her had been too much. Leaving had felt like the only answer.

Shame filled her as she headed inside. Her past was littered with bad decisions. Some of those decisions hadn’t been hers, but they still haunted her.

She moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine. She cracked it open and poured a hefty glass. The first sip was on her tongue when a knock sounded at her door. Ignoring the intruder was a possibility, but she didn’t want her landlord complaining about noise. He’d been absent for a few days, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have people keeping account of her mistakes.

There was no peephole or a window to look and see who it was. She just had to be prepared to defend herself once the door was open.

She yanked, ready to push the person down the stairs if necessary. The sight of Zip shocked her, and she froze.

“We should talk.” Zip stepped into her place, and she thought about telling him no, but he was right. They needed to talk so she could end this. There was no way he would want her after he learned the truth.

“Fine. Do you want wine?”

“No. And why are you mad at me?”

She took a long draw on the wine and then met his gaze. “I’m not mad at you. I’m pissed because my life is so fucked up, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“How fucked up could it be?”

Anger was like acid in her belly. Before, she’d wanted to hide the information from him. Now, she wanted him to know. She wanted him to understand why he should never come around again.

She took another long drink and met his gaze, frowning as the words started assembling in her mind. “I’m trash.”

“No, you’re?—”

“Shut up and listen.” She drank the last of the glass, anger boiling over. “When I was thirteen, my sister forced me into doing videos. She whored me out on the weekends. Eventually, one of your friends is going to recognize me.”

Zip’s intense expression could cut glass. She didn’t step back, though she could feel the heat coming off him. It was like watching an explosion without the actual explosion.

“Your sister? The woman at the bar?”

His eye twitched, and his lips thinned. She glanced down, noticing that his fists were clenched. She took a step back, and he relaxed visibly before he closed the distance between them. His hands cupped her face and the look in his eyes made her shiver.

“You were a child. You didn’t do that.”

“Your friends won’t know that.”

“If someone has a problem with you, first off, I’m going to ask them why they are watching videos with kids in them, and secondly, I’ll tell them to shut the fuck up.”

She blinked up at him, studying his face for any deception. “I was fucked by a lot of guys. I don’t know the body count because it was so many dudes.”

“I don’t give a shit if you fucked ten thousand men back then. You were a child, and they forced you to do it.”

“She did force me. When I hit twenty, they stopped forcing me because I was too old.”

“Not one bit of it bothers me—the number of men you had sex with. It bothers the hell out of me that your sister did that to you. If I see her again, I can’t promise what I’ll do.” His body shook, and she froze, hoping he wasn’t about to blow up. “Why did you go there to warn her about someone coming after her?”

She shrugged. “I’ve tried to break away, but history and stuff. I don’t know. I feel like I have to do something.”

“No. Never again. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but your sister should never be in your life. You need to totally cut her out. We’re your family now. Those people from your past don’t matter.”

She took a step back and held up her hand. “People could recognize me. Are you sure you’re okay with guys saying things? It can get gross when I meet people out in the wild.”

“I dare them to say anything to you. You’re under my protection now.”

“What does that mean?”

He huffed out a breath. “It means they have to go through me.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because, for some reason, you’ve crawled under my skin.”

“You’re acting like a cinnamon roll.”

His lips thinned, and she couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling up. His expression softened, and she reached out, placing her hand on his chest.

“Thank you.”

He shrugged. “I’m just doing what anyone else would do.”

She shook her head almost violently. “Heck no. No one else would care. When people find out I did porn, they leave. And my sister always makes sure my friends know what happened.”

“I don’t care about that. It doesn’t define you.”

“I want you to remember that when your friends figure out that I was in some video they watched at some point in the past. What are you going to do then?”

“Not going to be soft on them. I’ll tell them to shut it or else.”

Honestly, she didn’t believe him. When guys started ragging him about it, he would fold. She knew from history that’s what guys did. For now, she would humor him but never get attached. Getting close only brought heartache, and she could feel it in her bones that she was one heartache away from a total breakdown.