Reading His Submissive
Page 23
A stabbing pang of guilt seized him, and he wrenched his eyes closed against the memory. But how did he shut out images which existed only in his mind?
With her free hand, Genny pressed her palm to the spot on his chest she’d asked about before, a badge of dishonor he bore from the fateful night. “Her husband murdered her?”
“Not exactly.” Memories from the night flashed behind his eyes. “Everything happened so fast. I swear from the time I heard the first shot to the moment I passed out was less than fifteen seconds. I woke nearly a week later in the hospital, the sole survivor.”
He stopped then, the emotions he’d been struggling to hold in check overwhelming him. The tortured sound crawling up from his throat was unfamiliar, and the anguish strangling him stole nearly every ounce of his breath.
With a speed he didn’t know she possessed, Genny straddled him and tugged him into her embrace. He crushed her against him, buried his head against her chest, and held on for dear life as the anger and pain inside him raged on.
He’d never cried over Emily’s death. He’d raged about it, used his anger to fuel him to find justice for her. He’d fought against the pain her death had caused him—still caused him. He’d focused all his efforts on not facing the reality of her death, but he’d never cried about it.
She stroked his hair and whispered things he didn’t have the brainpower to make out. He wasn’t sure how long he’d cried. Ten minutes or ten years, neither would have surprised him. Even as his tears slowly dried, Genny never released him, and he prayed she never would.
Raven didn’t think it was possible to hurt so much because of someone else’s pain. What she wouldn’t give to be able to share his pain with him and take some of it on herself.
She’d lived a lifetime of heartache. An absent father. An emotionally absent mother. Periods of near starvation. Emotional and physical abuse at her mother’s hands, as well as at the hands of many men who had filtered through their lives. It was amazing she’d turned out anywhere near the well-adjusted range, but as she held Carter in her arms, her shirt wet from his tears, all the pain she’d suffered paled in comparison.
She couldn’t help but recall the first time they’d met in this locker room, before their second class. She’d been the one to break, and he’d offered her comfort. They’d come full circle. They’d each suffered a break, only for the other to grab some superglue and help put the broken pieces back together. Neither may ever be fully healed, but maybe that was okay.
Broken didn’t mean ruined.
She kissed the top of his head. “What happened next?” She dreaded his answer yet knew she needed to ask because he needed to tell.
“I met Maddox for the first time when I woke in the hospital. He was the junior detective assigned to the case. That’s when I learned of Emily’s death and that it had happened at the hands of a hit squad. At least, that was Maddox’s theory, but the lead detective insisted it was a burglary gone wrong. We knew Emily’s husband and his brother were involved. We just needed to prove it.
“Maddox came by my place most nights while I was on leave, and we talked through the details. He let me in on every aspect of the case, especially as leads dried up. We worked the case for nearly five years, both before and after I officially became a detective. No matter what our caseload looked like, we never stopped trying to get justice for Emily and the three other law enforcement officers killed that night.”
The details sparked a memory from her childhood, when she’d briefly been with the only foster family who’d ever cared about her. “Wait, are you talking about the John Cotton scandal?”
He nodded.
“Wow.”
The Cotton scandal had rocked more than the political landscape of Texas, several police officers and even the chief of police had been taken down before the dust had settled. The senator involved committed suicide, and the brother got the death penalty. Even as a teen, she’d been caught up in it. She’d had no idea Carter and Maddox had been involved, but given the anguish he still harbored, he didn’t view the takedown as anything to be proud of.
“You got justice,” she said, “but you never forgave yourself for Emily’s death.”
He flinched as solidly as if she’d sucker-punched him. He didn’t need to verbalize his answer, she knew.
She pulled back far enough to cup his face between her shaky hands and turn his face so he didn’t have a choice but to look at her. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he was sporting a tiny bruise under his right eye. None of the physical, however, compared to the pain darkening in his eyes.
She could only guess at all the elements working together to create such dramatic pain—her, Emily, the woman who’d gone missing, what had happened with her mom. Raven couldn’t do much about most of his pain, but she could, at least, address anything he might harbor because of her.
“I don’t blame you for what happened with my mom,” she said. “Not one bit. The DA is talking rehab instead of jail time, which I assume is your doing.”
He nodded.
“Forced rehab! It’s the best news I’ve received in years. Maybe, if my mom gets clean, and stays clean, we can work on repairing our relationship. It’s a long shot, I know, but it’s the best shot I’ve had in years. Thank you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t deserve your gratitude.”
“Well, you’ve got it anyway.” She offered a quick smile. “And so long as you swear to god not to leave me hanging for two weeks again, we can pretend like your absence never happened. If you want it, we can keep going and see where things between us end up.”
“Genny…” He mirrored her hold and took her cheeks in his hands. “Of course, I want it, but—”
“Shut up.” She accented her words with a kiss, taking his lips in a move which made talking impossible.
They were two broken souls who’d been lucky enough to find each other. Before Carter, she’d never believed in soul mates, but he made her rethink everything. They were two halves of a fragmented whole, but when they held each other, they healed each other.
He pulled back just far enough to break their kiss. “I want you, but you’d probably be better off if—”
“If the end of that sentence has anything to do with me walking away from you, you can shove it up your ass.” She gave him a quick kiss to the nose. “We’re both really fucked up, you know that?”
He chuckled, the sound breaking loose the darkness which had covered his vocal chords since he’d arrived. “Don’t bother sugarcoating anything for my benefit, sweetheart.”
She shrugged. “What’s the point in sugarcoating it? You’re fucked up. I’m fucked up. We have to own it, but I think your fucked up complements my fucked up—as fucked up as that sounds. But together, we’re the right kind of fucked up, the kind that’ll ensure our lives will never be boring.”
He tightened his hold on her. “I love you, Genny Malek.”
He loved her, and she loved him. They still had a lot to work through, but if she had faith in anything, she had faith in the love growing between them.
“I love you, too, Sir. Now, what do you say we get out of here? We can play more pirate golf, go bowling, or if you want, we can head to The Dark Side until the club closes for the night.”
Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against hers. Oh yeah, he’d caught the significance of her words. The Dark Side was a section of the club where the lights were kept considerably darker than the rest of the club. If they were going to move forward in their relationship, she saw no better start than stepping into the club, hand-in-hand; it was as profound a step as she could take.
And together, somehow, they’d figure out how this happily-ever-after shit worked.
The End
Author’s Note
Want more Restrained Fantasies?
His Forbidden Submissive (Master Brock and Viv’s story)
Reading His Submissive (Master Carter and Raven’s story)
Submissive Interr
upted (Master Maddox’s story), coming soon
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Brandi Evans
Brandi Evans was raised by a caravan of traveling Gypsies. She spent her days learning the ways of her people and her nights lost in legends as old as time. Okay, not really, but that's way more interesting than the truth!
In reality, Brandi grew up the oldest child of an ordinary family. Grade school, middle school, high school. Nothing extraordinary happened until she left the nest. She joined the military, went to college, got married, and became a mom. And somewhere along the way, she discovered she liked to read—and write!—stories hot enough to melt eReaders.
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