Chapter 24
twenty-four
. . .
LANE
I’d just hung up a group FaceTime call with Aria and Owen when my phone rang again. Expecting it to be one of them, I grinned, readying to tease them about missing me so much.
Instead, Sutton’s name flashed on the screen.
“Hey,” I said when I answered. “Everything okay?”
“Someone was following me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked dumbly, fear gripping my chest. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I was coming back from Boise. I’m in town, and I was going to go home, but—”
“No,” I said firmly. “Come to the ranch.”
Sutton made a noise of assent before hanging up.
In the fifteen minutes it took her to arrive, I’d damn near worn a groove in the floor of the den from my pacing. When her car finally appeared, I was outside in a flash, opening her car door, unbuckling her, and pulling her into my arms before she could protest or do it herself.
“Sunny,” I murmured into her hair. “Are you okay?”
She nodded against my chest. “Just shaken up.”
“Come inside,” I said, already tugging her in that direction.
I hated forcing her to confront the cavalry in her stunned condition, but it wasn’t the first time my family had seen a woman in distress like this, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
While I got Sutton settled in the den, Mama appeared with a mug of hot apple cider.
Before passing it to Sutton, I tested it to be sure it was alcohol free.
All evening my family had been imbibing in glasses of the cider mixed with apple pie Mama distilled herself.
The last thing my girl needed right now was booze.
Mama shot me a quizzical look, but I ignored it.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked gently, sitting down beside her.
“Not much to tell,” she said after a sip of the apple cider. Her voice seemed steadier now, and I noted her hands weren’t shaking any longer. All good signs. “I was…thinking. On my drive home. I turned on an audiobook and kind of tuned out.”
“Thinking?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Yeah, thinking. Not paying super close attention to my surroundings.” I started to issue an admonishment, but she held up a hand, stopping me. “I know, I know. Dumb thing to do. The next time I looked in my mirror, a black SUV was there.”
“Any distinguishing features you can remember?” I asked, patting my pockets for the spiral bound notebook I normally kept on me for such occasions. Of course, this time, I’d left it at home.
Sutton shook her head. “Just a big black SUV with tinted windows.”
“Could you make out who was driving?”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t see anything beyond the headlights.”
“A big black SUV with tinted windows,” Trey mused, reminding me my entire family stood around, watching us. “Sounds like a government vehicle to me.”
Sutton’s attention snapped to him, eyes darting between us. “Addie?” she whispered, and Trey shrugged as if to say, could be.
“Woah,” I said, raising my hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”
My brother’s shoulders hitched up again. “Just because you refuse to see it doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.”
He turned and walked away before I could demand to know what the fuck he meant by that.
After we said our goodbyes and Mama sent us out the door with a mountain of leftovers, Sutton and I headed home. I trailed after her the whole way, my head on a swivel, checking our surroundings for threats.
We were barely in the door before she turned on me, her entire body buzzing with restless energy.
I could think of a few ways to help her expend it, but I wasn’t going to push her when she’d made it so clear after the gala she wasn’t ready for that.
Maybe I’d suggest another mutual masturbation session. That had been the hottest experience of my life and had accompanied my jerk off sessions every day since. Thinking about her dripping pussy, her flushed skin, her perfect mouth—
“Can we spar?”
Sutton’s question immediately derailed my train of nasty thoughts, and I asked dumbly, “Like…verbally?”
Sutton huffed a sigh and rolled her eyes. “No, like physically. I need to hit something.”
I frowned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can hold my own.”
“Sutton, I have ten inches and probably a hundred pounds on you.”
“Lane, please.”
Well, hell. When she begged like that, eyes glassy with tears I knew she’d never let fall, there was no fucking way I could deny her.
“Fine,” I relented at last. “Go change and meet me downstairs.”
I headed to my room, quickly switching out my jeans and sweater for black joggers and a black sleeveless tee.
Then I retreated to the basement, digging through the bins until I located a set of gloves for Sutton and my focus mitts.
If she wanted to spar, we’d spar, but we’d do it on my terms. There was no fucking way I’d ever take a swing at her.
This would have to be enough for her to take out whatever was brewing inside her.
Footsteps on the stairs had my attention snapping up, and Sutton appeared.
A Herculean effort was required to keep my eyes above her collarbones, which were exposed by the narrow straps and low neckline of her sports bra. I definitely couldn’t let my gaze linger on the swells of her breasts, pressed up by the tight fabric. Or the stretch of exposed, toned abdomen.
Clearing my throat awkwardly, I handed her the gloves that would protect her knuckles but leave her fingers free. I’d been about to offer to help her put them on, but she surprised me by expertly strapping herself into them.
Okay then.
I grabbed the focus mitts and slid my hands into the straps, barely getting them up before she came flying at me.
Sutton had a lot of energy to burn; I’d noticed that upstairs.
Somehow, though, her movements remained controlled.
Without my direction, she walked herself through several combinations, like she’d done this before.
Her punches, jabs, and crosses were well placed, each with a surprising amount of force behind them.
I braced myself better, my arms vibrating with each impact.
For a long time, the basement room was filled with the sounds of her harsh breathing and the smacks of her fists on the mitts.
This woman was a goddamn enigma. She seemed so sweet and innocent on the outside, but it was merely a facade, a front to protect the depth within that she clearly didn’t want people to see.
When I dropped my arms, needing a break from the onslaught, Sutton bent in half, her breaths sawing in and out of her.
Shedding the mitts, I grabbed a water bottle from the mini fridge I kept down here and tossed it to her. She caught it easily, twisted off the cap, and guzzled half of it in one go.
“You’ve done this before.”
She grinned, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes.
“I took quite a few classes after the rape.” She said it so matter-of-factly, the lack of intonation in that final word doing more to clue me in on her emotional state than if she’d had to choke it out.
“I wanted to be able to knock a man on his ass if one ever touched me again.”
There were so many things I wanted to ask. I wished I could crawl into her mind and pick through it like a raccoon through a dumpster, gorging myself on all of her deepest thoughts, feelings, and desires.
I wondered if she felt this too. The fucking agony of being near her and unable to touch her, to hold her the way I wanted.
This admission certainly explained her reaction to me crowding her against the wall after the gala, though. Like she couldn’t stand to be trapped or overpowered. Pieces were starting to click into place.
Sutton had walls up, and I didn’t begrudge her that. She’d suffered something unimaginable, and she’d spent years protecting herself the best way she knew how.
How did I make her believe she was safe with me?
Opening my mouth, I attempted to say something—anything—to convince her, but she stopped me before I could.
Capping the water and tossing it to the side, she knocked her fists together and raised her hands into a fighting stance.
“Hands up, Chief. Let’s go again.”
I barely got them raised before she lunged, coming at me harder than she had before.
This time, there was less finesse to her movements, as though something inside her had snapped, unleashing the beast she kept carefully hidden.
It was all I could do to withstand her. I’d never admit it out loud, but my palms fucking burned from the relentless impact of her fists.
Soon, she devolved completely. I’d been so focused on her fists that I hadn’t been watching her face, and only a sob tearing free from her throat had me looking up.
Her polished form from our first round was completely gone.
Now, Sutton was swinging just to swing, and if she kept going like that, she was going to hurt herself.
When she choked on another sob, I dropped my hands and reached for her, holding her tightly as she attempted to continue punching me, albeit weakly.
“Shh,” I murmured, dropping the mitts to the ground so I could rub soothing circles up and down her spine with one hand, the other cupping the back of her head, holding her close. “It’s okay.”
Eventually, she stopped fighting me, her body shaking as she cried into my chest.
“I’m so tired of feeling scared,” she managed to gasp around her sobs. “Of feeling weak.”
“It’s okay to feel scared,” I assured her gently.
“But you are the opposite of weak, Sutton.” I backed away, moving my hands to cup her face and tilting her chin back so she’d meet my eyes.
“Do you understand me? I told you before, and I’ll say it again.
Hell, I’ll remind you every day if you need me to.
You are the strongest person I know. Tell me you understand. ”
Though tears still dripped from her eyes, her sobs were losing steam, and she nodded.
“Say it, sunny.”
“I understand,” she choked out.
“Say you’re strong.”
“I’m strong.”
“That’s my girl,” I grinned, pulling her back into a hug. “And so long as I’m breathing, nothing and no one will hurt you. You understand that too, right?”
“You almost weren’t, though.”
“What?”
“You almost weren’t breathing anymore,” she said, lifting her head and propping her chin on my chest. Tears still flowed freely from her eyes, but the choking sobs had eased. “I almost lost you.”
I shook my head. “You saved me, sunny. You kept me here. You. No one else. You gave me—gave us—a second chance.”
She dropped her head again and leaned in, pressing a kiss to my chest.
Right over my bullet wound.
Right over my heart.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” she whispered. “Not when I’ve still got…stuff. But I’m ready to try if you are.”
Stuff didn’t scare me. Whatever it was, we’d face it together.
Clasping her chin between my thumb and forefinger, I tilted her face up to mine so I could drop a featherlight kiss on her lips, moving in slowly. Giving her plenty of time to back away.
She didn’t.
“Baby, I’ve been ready.”