Chapter 2
two
. . .
Winny
The man who broke in is gone. The detective who broke down my door is still here.
And he’s looking at me like I’m already his.
I should be terrified. The things he’s saying—low, rough promises about keeping me safe, about no one touching me again—they’re not the kind of things a stranger says to a grieving eighteen-year-old girl he just met.
They’re the kind of things a man says when he’s decided something. When he’s made up his mind.
But his hands are so careful.
He sets me down on the couch and kneels in front of me, those big scarred fingers moving over my arms, my shoulders, checking for injuries with a gentleness that doesn’t match the rest of him.
He’s built like something carved from stone—broad shoulders, thick forearms, a jaw that looks like it’s taken hits and given worse.
Twice my age, easy. Thirty-five, thirty-six. Old enough to be...
I don’t let myself finish that thought.
Because while my brain is still catching up—still raw from the funeral three weeks ago, still drowning in mortgage statements and insurance forms I don’t understand, still waking up expecting to hear my mom’s voice down the hall—my body is doing something else entirely.
It’s melting.
Every place his fingers touch goes warm. Every low, growled reassurance sinks into my skin and settles there. When he pushes my hair back from my face and his thumb brushes my cheekbone, I lean into it without thinking. Like a plant turning toward the sun.
“You’re shaking,” he says, and his voice has that rough edge, the one that sounds like it’s been scraped raw by too many nights and too many bad calls.
“I’m always shaking lately,” I whisper.
Something dark moves behind his eyes. His hand cups the back of my neck, thumb tracing the line of my jaw, and the possessiveness in that touch should scare me. It doesn’t. It feels like the first solid thing I’ve held onto since the accident.
“I’m not leaving you here,” he says. Not a question. A fact. “Pack a bag. Clothes, toiletries, whatever you need. We’re going to my place.”
“We?” The word comes out small.
“Me and you, baby girl.” His thumb brushes my lower lip, and the endearment hits me somewhere low and warm. “You’re not spending another night alone in this house. Not while I’m breathing.”
I should argue. I’m eighteen. An adult. Technically. But the house feels too big and too empty and the broken window is still letting in night air and I can still hear the sound of glass breaking and the intruder’s voice and?—
“Okay,” I say. Again. That same small surrender.
His eyes darken. He leans forward and presses his mouth to my forehead, a kiss so careful it barely qualifies, and something in my chest cracks wider.
“I’ll help you pack,” he says, and stands, pulling me up with him. His hand doesn’t leave mine.
We move through the house together. He finds a duffel bag in my dad’s closet and fills it with efficiency that borders on military.
Clothes from my dresser. My toothbrush from the bathroom.
The stuffed rabbit I’ve had since I was six, hidden under my pillow where he finds it without comment and tucks it into the bag like it’s something precious.
He doesn’t ask permission. He just takes care of things. And God, after weeks of being the one who has to figure everything out, the relief of someone else making decisions is so sharp it hurts.
We’re in my bedroom when it changes.
I’m reaching for a sweater on the top shelf and lose my balance. He catches me, one arm around my waist, and suddenly I’m pressed against the solid wall of his chest and his breath is hot on my neck and his hand is spanning my ribcage just below my breasts and?—
“Careful,” he murmurs, and his voice has dropped an octave, gone rough and hungry.
I look up at him. His eyes are black. Fixed on my mouth.
I don’t know which of us moves first. Maybe we both do. But his mouth is on mine and his hand is in my hair and he’s kissing me like he’s been starving for it, like he decided the second he walked through that door that this was happening and he’s just been waiting for the right moment to claim it.
I kiss him back. Hard. Desperate. My hands fist in his shirt and I’m pulling him closer and he makes this sound—this low, wrecked groan—and walks me backward until my knees hit the bed and we’re down, his huge body covering mine, one hand cradling my head like I’m made of glass.
He doesn’t take it further. Not tonight.
What he does is worse. Better. His hand slides under my t-shirt, palm flat against my stomach, and he breaks the kiss to look down at me with those dark, hungry eyes.
“I’m going to touch you,” he says. “Just my hands. Just my mouth. I need to make sure you’re okay. I need to feel you come for me. Can I do that, baby girl? Can I take care of you tonight?”
I’m beyond words. I nod, and his thumb brushes my lower lip again and his eyes go even darker.
“Use your words for me.”
“Yes.” It comes out ragged. “Please.”
His mouth finds my neck. His hand moves higher, under my shirt, and when his palm closes over my breast through my thin cotton bra, I arch off the bed with a whimper that sounds nothing like me. He makes that sound again, the wrecked one, and his thumb finds my nipple and rolls it and?—
“Fuck, you’re responsive,” he growls against my skin. “My good girl. So fucking perfect for me.”
The praise liquefies something in my spine. His hand moves lower, pushing my pajama shorts down my thighs, and when his fingers find me—wet, so wet, embarrassingly wet—he makes a sound like he’s been punched.
“Already dripping for me,” he murmurs, and his voice is filth now, pure filthy admiration. “Knew you would be. Knew this sweet little pussy would be ready.”
His fingers slide through my folds, circling my clit with a precision that has me gasping, and then one thick finger pushes inside and I cry out, my hips jerking, my nails digging into his shoulders.
“That’s it,” he praises, mouth on my neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin below my ear. “Take it. My finger. My hand. Everything I’m going to give you.”
He works me with that single finger, curling it just right, his thumb on my clit, and when the orgasm hits it’s so sudden and so violent I scream into his shoulder, my body locking around his hand, trembling, shaking apart.
He doesn’t stop. He adds a second finger, stretching me, and whispers against my skin while I come again—“Gonna fill you up someday, baby girl. Gonna breed this tight little cunt until you’re round with my kid. Never be alone again. Promise you that.”
The words should horrify me. Instead they send another pulse of heat through my already oversensitized body, and I come a third time with his mouth on my breast through my shirt, his fingers deep inside me, his low, filthy promises in my ear.
After, when I’m boneless and trembling, he tucks me against his chest and strokes my hair and tells me he’s got me. That he’s not letting go.
We leave before dawn. My duffel bag in his trunk. Me in his passenger seat, his hand on my thigh the whole drive. His house is twenty minutes away—a fortress of a place with extra locks and a security system he arms the second we step inside.
He puts me in his bed. His bed. Slides in beside me, pulls me against his chest, and holds me while the sky lightens outside the window.
“You’re safe now,” he murmurs into my hair. “No one’s getting to you. Not ever again.”
I believe him. That’s the terrifying part.
I believe every word.