Page 13 of Glorious Sinner

“This is…thank you for letting me stay. I didn’t have time to pack anything. I came straight here after work.”

“I’ll get you anything you need.” Christ, her eyes were gorgeous. Bright green. Stunning. “All you have to do is ask.”

Those beautiful eyes filled with unshed tears as she nodded, and I curled my fingers into tight fists so I didn’t reach for her. I wasn’t letting her go again. Fuck that, I was keeping her here with me where she was safe, where I could protect her. Where she belonged.

Stephanie had come to me. She’d chosen me. She hadn’t gone to Raul, or Willa, or one of the other girls or bouncers at the club. She’d come to me. When she’d been afraid, had felt threatened, alone, it was me she ran to. There was a reason for that, whether or not she was ready to admit it to herself or not.

Which meant everything had just changed. I wasn’t going to push too hard, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to pull away from her either. If she needed time, she could have all the time in the world, but I wasn’t pretending anymore that what I felt for her was anything other than what it was.

The raw honest truth was all I was capable of showing her now. I couldn’t pretend or suppress what I was feeling any longer.

“I can’t believe he’s back. Why? Why won’t he leave me alone?” she said, hugging herself.

“I promise you, you’re safe here with me. Nothing, no one can touch you here.” Not even me. Not unless you ask. “I won’t let him come anywhere near you. I’ll kill him first,” I said.

A shiver moved through her, but she didn’t look frightened by my words. No, she looked relieved. Stephanie trusted me. She trusted me with her life.

Did she have any idea what she’d just done? What she’d just given me?

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I gritted my teeth. I fucking hated how broken she sounded, how all the strength she’d worked so hard to build had been decimated. That voice, that small, broken voice was back. The voice I’d heard when she woke in her hospital bed and cracked my heart wide open. I thought it was nothing but a shriveled husk in my chest until that day.

I tried, and failed, at keeping the growl of rage vibrating through me from my voice, the white-hot fury pumping through my veins. “Don’t thank me, Angel. You don’t ever have to thank me.”

Ryan was going to pay, and he wouldn’t walk away this time.

Stephanie

I woke to sun streaming through the window. It took me a moment to work out where I was, then it all came rushing back. Coming here in the middle of the night…

Breaking down in front of Tomas.

Humiliation burned my face. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that, but especially not Tomas. I threw an arm over my eyes. My life was a mess. Ryan had slithered from whatever hole he’d been hiding in, and Tomas…

I remembered how he’d looked last night when he’d come down those stairs, all fierce and strong and pissed off on my behalf. How he’d felt against me when he pulled me in tight against his warm, hard body to comfort me.

My belly flipped low down.

Did he…could he really want me like that? Did he really see me as more than some…some broken shell, a victim? I thought about the last time I danced for him, and electricity zapped through my belly, lower.

You’d think the fact that I danced for a living, took my clothes off in front of people, would mean I was this…this sex kitten, the kind of woman who was in touch with her sexual side. Strong and confident. And I hated that Tomas had seen me break down last night, that he got a glimpse of the truth beneath the show, the pretense I put on at work.

Because the truth was the opposite. The last time I’d had sex? I swallowed audibly. I didn’t want to think about it.

The last time I’d had an orgasm?

I couldn’t remember.

Ryan liked to withhold them, and I’d been punished the first time I admitted to my husband that I’d gotten myself off. I thought he’d find the admission sexy, exciting. Instead, Ryan had been jealous, positive I’d been thinking of someone else when I’d come, and had forbidden me from doing it again. I’d convinced myself he’d know if I’d touched myself because he always seemed to know everything. And he’d been right. I’d lied about it to him, of course, but I had thought of someone else.

A tattooed crime boss, who I’d learned last night wore black pajama pants so low it should be a crime. A man who was so ripped he looked carved from marble. Yeah, I’d cast Tomas in the starring role of every one of my fantasies since I’d first laid eyes on him.

My shy admission to Ryan that I’d made myself come while he wasn’t there had started a new kind of punishment. His very own brand of correction therapy.

A shudder moved through me.

I barely felt like a woman anymore, let alone a sexual creature. How could Tomas see me like that when I didn’t feel that way about myself?