CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KYRA
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“Nothing in this world could make me not want you,” Maddox says, and I shake my head.
He doesn’t know.
If being abused wasn’t enough, when he learns it was by the person he hates most in this world, he’ll change his mind. He won’t want his father’s seconds even if I wasn’t penetrated by him.
I don’t know if I could handle it either.
I feel constantly dirty.
“This would.” I shake my head.
“Kyra.” He grips my chin. “I know what happened. If you don’t want to tell me that’s okay. But I know.”
I blink.
How does he know?
A memory flashes back from the church when Pierce was holding me in a grip.
It makes my cock hard. The same one Maddox sucked over and over and over when he was a little boy.
I had barely a second to process that information with everything that was happening and have been in a state of depression since he brought me home.
Home.
Is this my home?
“No. You don’t. If you did, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Listen to me,” he growls.
I grip his strong muscular arms, where the sleeves are rolled up, and look him directly in the eye. “I didn’t even stop him, Maddox. The man you hate the most. I didn’t stop him.”
Motherfucker. I hate him.
Maddox stills for a moment, draws in a slow deep breath.
“Neither did I.”
My hand flies to my mouth as tears roll down my face. His vulnerability is almost too much. My chest tightens and I fall against his chest.
“Shhh.” His hand runs over my hair.
“I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.” I sob, clutching his shirt.
“Me too, baby. Me too,” Maddox replies, way too calm and controlled for the moment.
I glance up, wiping my eyes.
He dips his head. “I have lived with what he did to me. But hurting the woman I love is too much.”
I blink.
Did he just say—
His hand threads through my hair. “I love you, Kyra.”
Oh god. I never dreamed that he would truly feel this way. I thought perhaps he felt responsible. That this was no more than lust.
I need Maddox to know I feel the same.
“I love you, too. Are we crazy?”
“Most definitely.” The corner of his lip lifts.
I smile and hiccup at the same time.
“You need to know, you couldn’t have stopped him. And it changes nothing about the way I feel about you.” He reassures me. “When you’re ready, I’m going to make love to every inch of your body and cleanse his evil from you.”
I feel myself react to his words.
But before I can let myself truly feel again, I need to say the words out loud. If I love this man, I will. I have to do my part in healing.
“He found the toy, Maddox.” I say, ashamed. “He put his mouth there.”
His palm cups my face.
“He did much the same to me, but he will die for doing it to you.”
I gasp.
Without asking, I know with every cell in my body that he means it and that he’s capable of it.
Selfishly, I want him to do it.
So I nod.
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MADDOX TRIES TO talk me into having a rape kit done. While Pierce didn’t penetrate me, he says it’s important to go through the process and have it on record.
“We’ll have him charged,” he says the next morning as I lie in his arms surrounded by his crisp white sheets. “I’m going to make sure he spends the rest of his life in prison.”
I wonder if he’s changed his mind about killing him. Perhaps it was just his anger talking.
“He was my fiancé,” I remind Maddox, running my fingers over the tattoo on his pec.
I am slowly coming out of my shell and feeling his power, and the strength of his body helps. He held me all night and I’ve never felt closer to anyone. We’re living in a bubble. Yet again, I don’t have my phone or any belongings. In some ways, it feels like I have started a whole new life.
What it looks like when the bubble bursts, I don’t know.
“That doesn’t give him a right to touch you without permission. No means fucking no,” Maddox says, and I fall in love with him ten times more.
He came for me.
He stopped the worst—second worst—moment of my life happening.
I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to go through a legal battle, but we don’t need to decide right now. But I feel like Maddox needs to vent and fight. It’s his way of dealing with it.
So I don’t commit and just say maybe.
“How did you survive?” I ask, wondering if he’ll talk more about his childhood.
“Travis,” he says. “Parker. Zayne. Killian. Their stories are theirs to tell, but they’re the reason I survived. How we all survived.”
My mouth parts, horrified that all these once little boys came together for what sounds like the same reason. Abuse.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It made us the strong men we are today. We survived, and so will you.”
“Because I have you.” I go to lean against his chest, but he stops me.
“No, because you’re you. Kyra. You’re stronger than you think. I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t. You challenged me. Tried to play me...goddamn, you were a nightmare.”
I can’t help my smile.
“Well, you shouldn’t go around kidnapping young ladies.”
He snorts.
“You sound like Travis.”
“Wait. How many times have you done this?”
“Never.” Maddox frowns. “Once.” He corrects, then shifts his body and props his elbow under his head. “I want to make sure you understand this. You’re free to leave. I want you to stay forever and spend your life with me. God, I’m so fucking in love with you, but I’m a possessive man and that might be smothering.”
He loves me.
This beautiful and powerful man loves me.
“If another man even looks at you, I’ll kill him. But you are free.”
My heart flares like a supernova as he bares his own to me. A hint of almost nervousness appears in his eyes as he awaits my response.
“I don’t want to leave.”
He takes my hand and kisses my fingers.
“I want you to touch me.”
“Kyra.”
“No. I need this. I want you to be the man whose touch I feel. No one else’s.”
I take his hand and lower it to my breast and watch fire explode like it’s the Fourth of July in those piercing silver eyes.