Chapter 35
Mary
After. Somehow, I’m still here.
The water runs hot. Too hot. My hands are pink from scrubbing, but I keep going, lathering, rinsing, lathering again, because the smell won’t leave.
I can still feel him. Evan. His weight, his breath, his voice in my ear. Anton ripped him away, but my skin won’t stop crawling, like the memory has seeped inside me where soap can’t reach.
I stare at my hands. My wrists. Red marks already surfacing. Fingerprints. A claim. My stomach turns. I bend forward, breathing hard, gagging on air. For a second, I think I’ll throw up.
I want to tear my skin off. I want to disappear.
But Evan’s voice echoes in my skull like someone left a radio on too loud.
Nobody wants you but me.
Who else would even look at you?
Ungrateful. Boring. Lucky I didn’t leave sooner.
Six years. Six years of that. Of swallowing those words and smiling anyway. Of twisting myself small enough to fit inside the box he built for me. Six years of thinking—no, of believing—he was right.
My ribs feel too small for my heartbeat. Memory pulls me all the way back to being twelve years old, sitting outside school while kids laughed because no one picked me up on time. Because I was invisible. Forgettable. Disposable.
Through the door, muffled, I hear Anton’s voice. Steady, low.
“Good. Hold him there.” A measured pause. “Yeah. Breathing.”
Another silence, shorter this time.
“She’s okay. Got to her in time.”
In time. The words slice through me. Because he’s right. If he’d been later—just one more minute—Evan would have—
I shake my head hard, like I can knock the thought out before it finishes. But my body knows. My stomach knows.
The low murmur dies. A rustle, then the sharp snap of the call ending. Leather shifts as he slides the phone back into his pocket.
Now it’s quiet. Too quiet.
Except, not really.
Because I hear him… those boots. Heavy, deliberate. Each step closer across tile. Slow, steady, like he knows I can’t run.
They stop. Right outside the door.
My pulse stutters. I stare at the door. My reflection wavers in the mirror—eyes red, hazel dulled, cheeks streaked wet. I don’t look like myself.
I don’t want him to see me like this.
Broken. Filthy.
But some traitorous part of me still aches for the door to open.
The knob turns.
The mirror catches him first; broad shoulders filling the frame, black shirt stretched tight across muscle. The cotton clings, tracing every line, every ridge of him. Veins run thick over his forearms, up the side of his neck, cutting against the ink scrawled there like some brutal signature.
The shirt’s streaked dark in places—blood, dried into the fabric like a warning. Not his. Evan’s.
My chest tightens, breath caught somewhere high and useless.
Because even now—shaking, raw, filthy—I feel it.
The heat that rolls off him. The way danger looks carved into his body, and somehow, that makes him sexier.
Deadlier. Like he walked straight out of a war and brought it into my bathroom with him.
My eyes trace him before I can stop, drinking in everything I shouldn’t. Then his gaze finds mine in the glass. Steady. Unreadable. Mine are red, swollen, a stranger’s.
I wait for him to say something. Anything.
He doesn’t speak. Just stands there, broad shoulders eating up the mirror, his gaze locked on me.
I fold my arms tighter, ribs aching with the pressure, wishing I could vanish into the tile. I’m painfully aware of my puffy eyes, wet cheeks, hair stuck to my temples. Like someone ruined.
I wait for it: the questions, the anger. Why would you go back there? Why risk it? The excuses choke my throat before he even opens his mouth.
But he never does. Only his gaze travels down. My wrists, raw red from Evan’s grip. My throat blotched from scrubbing. The blouse, wrinkled, stained where Evan’s hands shoved.
The heat of it pins me in place. Not pity. Not disgust. Something heavier. Like he’s making a ledger of every mark on me and already planning the debt collection.
I grip myself harder, shaking, bracing for judgment that never comes. Just the weight of him behind me, silent, immovable, and too close to breathe around.
The silence stretches. I almost wish he’d yell. At least then I’d know what to do with my hands, my lungs, my skin that still feels like it belongs to someone else.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he moves like he’s dismantling a bomb. Slow. Deliberate.
He takes a towel off the rack and dampens it under the sink. His movements are precise and controlled. Like every muscle is leashed.
“Turn around.”
His voice lands low, gravel and smoke, the kind that doesn’t need volume to make you obey.
I move before I can think better of it, pivoting slowly, my arms still locked tight around myself. He fills the space.
His scent hits first.
Soap. Metal. Gun oil.
He smells like heat and aftermath, and it hits somewhere low in my gut that I thought was dead. Especially after what just happened.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He doesn’t step back. Doesn’t give me space to think. His gaze holds steady, carved from whatever God uses when He makes men who don’t break. I feel it more than I see it. Like the pressure of fingers against skin, searching for the softest part.
My mouth opens. No words come. Just the taste of copper and soap and something sharp in the air that might be him.
His hand rises.
The pad of his thumb grazes my bottom lip, slow, over the swollen cut Evan left behind. I flinch, but he doesn’t pull away. The touch isn’t gentle. But it’s… careful. Like he’s not trying to soothe it. Just mark the damage for himself.
I should hate it.
Should shove him away. Should remind myself that whatever he is, he’s not safe.
But my body’s faster than my brain. Every nerve fires awake, greedy after being numb too long. My pulse trips, slams. My mouth tingles where he touched, like it already belongs to him.
And God help me, part of me wants more.
His eyes flick up. One breath of space between us.
“Hold still.” That’s all he says.
Then he moves.
Big hands on my waist—hot, solid, inescapable. He lifts me as though I weigh nothing and sets me on the counter. Glass jars rattle behind me. The marble bites into the backs of my thighs, cold and hard and grounding. But it’s not enough.
Anton steps between my knees. Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t wait. Just fills the space like he was always meant to.
“Anton—” His name cracks on my lips, too thin to hold everything inside me right now.
My cheeks flush hot. I try to shift back—instinct more than thought—but there’s nowhere to go; the counter edge digs into my lower back, the mirror cool against my shoulders.
I’m pinned. And I’m wet. God, I’m wet.
I hold my breath without meaning to. Like if I stay perfectly still, maybe he won’t notice. Maybe the air will shift. Maybe I’ll wake up. But nothing moves.
Not him. Not me. Just the weight of him pressed between my thighs and the sound of my own heartbeat climbing into my throat.
His gaze pins me in place. “He put his hands on you.”
It’s not a question. It’s an accusation. A fact.
“Yes.” The word barely makes it out.
One hand lifts, rough fingers brushing the edge of my collarbone where my blouse is torn. His touch is so light it shouldn’t leave a mark, but it does—heat streaking across my skin.
“Here?”
I nod.
His other hand slides lower, settling on my waist, thumb pressing the tender spot where Evan had gripped me. “Here?”
“Yes.” My voice breaks.
Something dark flickers across his face, violent, dangerous. His thumb moves in a slow circle, overwriting the memory of someone else’s hands with his own.
He’s too close. Too much. Towering over me, caging me in with nothing but his body. My pulse stutters, knees trembling even though he’s holding them open his weight.
I should be afraid. Should tell him to step back. But all I can think about is his mouth—cut clean, inches from mine. My throat works; useless, because some treacherous part of me is already wondering what he tastes like.
“Does it hurt?” he asks.
Of course it does. Everything hurts.
My skin. My chest. My head. But the real pain is deeper, tangled in every word Evan ever shoved down my throat.
I want to lie. To shrug. To make it small. That’s what I’ve always done.
Instead: “Yes.” My voice cracks on it.
Anton’s jaw tightens, muscle twitching once. His thumb brushes over the welt, and the breath catches in my lungs.
The silence is louder than shouting. Louder than the faucet still running.
He lifts the towel, presses it against my cheek. The cloth is cool, soothing, where my skin feels raw. His hand follows the line of my jaw, tilting my face up until I’m forced to look at him.
And fuck—his eyes. His eyes are merciless. Not angry with me. Just lit with something darker, hungrier. Something that says “mine” in a language I shouldn’t want to understand.
“I-I’m sorry…” My voice is a whisper. A warning. A plea. I don’t even know which.
Anton’s eyes don’t flinch. They’re carved from shadow.
“Sorry for what?” His voice is a low growl, all heat and edges, like he’s whispering secrets against my skin, and my whole body listens.
He drops the towel to the side, then reaches past me to shut off the faucet. The move drags his whole body closer—broad chest crowding my space, hips brushing forward, nudging my knees apart without asking.
Oh, my God.
He’s so close, so big, and so hot against me, and I can’t breathe around it. His body’s a furnace. Hard, unyielding, muscle taut under that blood-streaked shirt, pressing into my thighs like he’s carved from iron and meant to burn.
My thighs shake, caught in the cage of him, and a spark skitters down my spine, too hot, too fast. His jeans grind against me, and a slick pulse awakens low, my body answering him in ways I can’t control, soaking through my jeans.
The shame of it makes my face burn hotter than the water I scrubbed with.