12 #4
“And I said look at me.” I reached for her chin, careful but firm, and tipped her face toward mine before she could hide again. “Right now. Eyes on me.”
Her breath hitched.
For a second, she fought it. I felt the resistance in the tight line of her jaw, the tremor beneath my fingers, and every part of her that wanted to slap my hand away and make this ugly enough to survive.
Then she looked at me.
Holy fuck, it broke something inside me.
Aura looked at me with tears on her face and terror in her eyes, and I didn’t know how I had ever thought I understood pain before this.
I had seen her angry, jealous, cruel, turned on, exhausted, smug, and untouchable.
I had seen her come apart beneath me and put herself back together before I could ask too many questions.
I had never seen her like this. Stripped of the performance, shaking, so ashamed of needing someone that the need itself seemed to hurt worse than the tears.
I wiped them away with my thumbs before letting myself think too hard about whether I had the right.
She flinched, then held still, and that tiny choice almost killed me.
“Easton,” she whispered, and my name came out broken in a way no sound ever should.
“I get it,” I said.
Her face changed.
I swallowed, my throat tight enough to hurt. “Fuck, Aura, I get it.”
She shook her head once, barely. “You don’t.”
“I don’t know all of it.” I kept my hands against her face because she hadn’t pulled away and I needed her looking at me. “But I know they raped you.”
Her mouth trembled. She bit down on it hard enough that I thought she might draw blood, then shook her head.
“You really don’t.”
“We can deal with that later,” I said. “You can hate me later. You can scream at me, cut me up, tell me every single way I failed you, and I’ll stand there and take it. But right now, I need you to stay back here.”
Her eyes sharpened through the tears. “What are you going to do?”
I didn’t answer quickly enough.
Her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. “Easton.”
I looked down at her fingers wrapped around me.
Even terrified and shaking, she still grabbed hold when she thought I was about to do something stupid. She still cared enough to stop me and hated that she cared so much it made her hand tremble.
I looked back at her. “I’m going to handle it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.” Her grip tightened. “You can’t. Don’t make this worse because of me.”
“Nothing that happens to him is because of you.”
Her eyes filled again, fast and brutal. “That’s not how it works.”
“It is with me.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand what this does. You don’t understand what it feels like when men hurt other men and then everyone looks at me like I caused it. I can’t have one more thing happen because my name was in someone’s mouth.”
I leaned closer, my hand sliding from her cheek to the side of her neck, my thumb resting against the wild race of her pulse. “Listen to me. You didn’t cause what happened in that bar, and you didn’t cause what I’m about to do.”
Her lips parted.
“I make my own choices,” I said. “Maddox made his. Darian made his. Every one of them made theirs. None of that belongs to you. Whatever happens next belongs to me.”
A sob broke from her before she could stop it, and she turned her face into my palm like the movement had been ripped from somewhere deeper than pride.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to pull her into me, sit on that dirty hallway floor, and hold her until every person in the bar forgot what they had seen.
Instead, I wiped the next tear from her cheek and made my voice steady.
“Stay here, please.”
Her laugh cracked apart. “Don’t say please when you’re about to commit assault.”
Despite everything boiling beneath my skin, my mouth almost moved.
Almost.
“That’s sound legal advice.”
“You look like you’re about to kill him.”
“I’m not going to kill him.”
“That was not reassuring.”
“I’m going to make him regret opening his mouth when he should’ve kept it fucking shut.”
“That is also legally terrible.”
“Hannah has cameras. I’ll be mindful.”
Her face twisted between horror and something that almost resembled the ghost of her mean little smile, and that tiny flicker was enough to let me breathe for one second.
I brushed my thumb beneath her eye again. “Stay here. Lock yourself in the office if you need to. Get Hannah. Call Bliss. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t come back out there yet.”
Her hand remained around my wrist. “Easton,” she whispered.
I bent closer until my forehead nearly touched hers, until I could feel her breath against my mouth and the entire world narrowed to her shaking in front of me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
Her fingers tightened once, like she wanted to keep me there.
Then she let go.
I stood before I could change my mind, before the sight of her on the floor with tears on her face made me forget the man waiting in the bar had earned every bit of what was coming. I backed away one step, then another, keeping my eyes on her until the hallway turned and the wall took her from me.
Behind me, the Sin Bin roared back into focus.
Maddox was still breathing the same air as her, and I went to fix that.