He grabbed her jaw, cupping her cheeks and stilling her. “If you don't hop when I say hop, we're going for a walk.” He jerked his head toward the door and the windows beyond. “Out there.”
When he released her, she climbed onto the vanity, her limbs shaking and the cords taut in her neck. With her ass on the handheld mirror and her legs spread, her bent knees pressed against the wall mirror. It was an awkward position, but she'd just have to deal with it. He yanked away the towel and tossed it behind him.
Her hands started to move to her pussy, but she caught herself and clutched her knees instead. Good girl.
Leaning against her back, he trailed his fingers around her ribs, beneath her tits, crossed his arms around her waist, and hugged her to him. “How long have you been a shut in?”
“Two years, three months, and five days.” She peeked at him from beneath her lashes.
He scraped his stubble against her cheek. “What happened?”
Her finger tapped restlessly on her knee. “I got scared.”
“More scared than you are now?”
She nodded, swiftly and passionately.
Damn. He was no psychiatrist. But he knew how to manipulate to get what he wanted. “Does this” —he cupped her pussy— “have something to do with it?”
Her breaths quickened, and her face contorted in pain. Fuck, if she had a meltdown, he'd get nowhere. He moved his hand, placing it over her breastbone, and touched his lips to her ear. “I won't touch your pussy, but I want you to look at it and tell me what you see.”
“Why?” Her eyes roamed his face in the mirror, pleading. “What are we doing?”
He was digging too deep, too fast, but he wasn't a patient man. “Let's call it an exorcism. I'm not officially trained, but I'm well-versed in demons.”
She watched him, maybe hoping he'd change his mind. Or stalling. But she was a smart girl. She'd make the right choice.
Slowly, her eyes shifted, wandering the room. Then breath by breath, they lowered. Down, down, a little hitch in her chest brought them up before they lowered all the way.
He didn't prompt her, didn't move. He simply took in the splendor of the view between her legs.
Swollen, juicy lips formed a deep crevice of dark flesh, hiding the opening that had felt so fucking tight around his cock. Heat rushed to his groin, hardening him against his jeans and tightening his balls. The hood of her clit was still a beautiful shade of red from his teeth. He wanted to keep it that way.
Her voice shattered his reflective thoughts. “It's grotesque.”
What the fuck? He bit down on his tongue to keep his roar from escaping. After a few deep inhales, he asked softly, “Who told you that?”
Her lips pressed together, and her body turned to shivering stone in his arms. After another battle of glares in the mirror, she looked at her hands where they were fisted on her knees. “Lots of people.”
“I want names.” Blood rushed outward from his core, heated and violent, hardening his muscles around her. “Start with the first fucker who fed you that bullshit.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Whatever I want. Give me the name here or outside.” He was one second from hauling her naked body through the woods. Thank Christ, his closest neighbor was two-hundred treed acres away. He trusted the waist-high trip wires he'd set up around the perimeter. One touch and the alarm in the cabin would blare. “Choose.”
“Brent.” Her voice was so soft he would've missed it if he weren't reading her lips.
“Who the fuck is Brent?”
She closed her eyes, opened them, and found his in the mirror. “My ex-husband.”
He held his expression blank as his stomach bucked and burned. Not once in his research had he stumbled on an ex-husband. His first instinct was to blame the cocksucker for her disorders then find him and kill him. But he needed the story so he could show her how very wrong it was.
“Eyes on your pussy while you tell me exactly what he said. All of it, from start to finish.”
She shifted her ass on the handheld mirror, which gave them both another angle of her beautiful cunt. When her gaze lowered to it, she clenched her teeth. “I've never talked about this.”
He dropped his mouth to her shoulder and murmured, “I swear, Amber, I'll burn off my dick if I ever use this to hurt you.” He meant it with a startling passion.
She kept her eyes on her pussy, but her gaze shifted inward as she leaned her back against his chest, her shoulders curling forward. “We were at an after-party for the semi-finalists in an international beauty pageant. I might've won the competition, but I let my stupid insecurities destroy my chances, my career, my marriage. My life.”
Memories of that night two years ago built behind Amber's eyes as she stared at the flabby flesh between her legs. She wanted to hide it, to hide from it, but she couldn't look away. Exposing her shame and talking about it was fitting, right here, right now. When her fractured life couldn't sink any lower. With a man she should be repelling rather than attracting.
“It was the eve of the final competition.” Her voice wavered. “All the icons of the pageant industry were there.” The Master of Ceremony, former pageant winners, handpicked members of the media, and a host of celebrity models and photographers. “It was a night to impress and network with the who's who among the business.”
Van's chest pressed against her back, centering her, his attentive silence an unexpected support. Despite being physically abusive, not once had he degraded her verbally. Wrong or right, it was enough to propel her. “Tawny was there.”
“Tawny?”
She tensed. Oh fuck, why had she mentioned her sister? Would he go after her next?
His palm caressed her belly, a vulnerable place to touch her. He'd punched her there. So why did the intimacy of his hand feel so good?
He kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “If she means something to you, I won't hurt her. I'm only interested in what happened.”
“She means a great deal to me.”
“A best friend? Or a sister?” Understanding warmed his voice. He had no reason to fake that. He could've simply forced her to answer.
“My only sibling. She's a mid-level fashion model, dabbled in pageantry, but didn't have the same success. She was always at my side.” Clinging to Amber's circle of friends, looking for the big break in her own career.
He pushed her hair over one shoulder, and his lips brushed the back of her neck, raising hundreds of tiny bumps across her skin.
She cringed, but didn't lean away. “Brent was entertaining a crowded table with his usual charm when he asked me to grab him a beer. That was his thing. Work the crowd while I...I was an introvert.” Her stomach turned, and bile simmered through her chest. “When I returned, more people had gathered around him, and he was...fla— flapping his arms in the air. Men and women, dressed in tuxes and evening gowns, were doubled over, howling with laughter and wiping tears from their eyes.”
Van's chest hardened behind her as she contemplated the ugly dark folds of skin around her vulva. “I knew it had something to do with me, something awful.” It usually did. Her voice strained. “He was a crowd pleaser. Everybody loved him.” Which was why she fell so hard for him, so fast, at the naive age of eighteen. Her head bent forward, her entire body aching, as visible tremors coursed through her. “Always the center of attention. Even when it was at my expense.”
“Why?” His sharp tone cut through her. “What did he gain from that?”
Her spread legs shook beneath her hands, and her heart twisted painfully. She searched for the right answer, the one Dr. Michaels had helped her come to terms with. “We met in high school and married at eighteen, right about the time I entered the world of pageantry. Things were good. Better than good.” A flutter brushed against the ache in her heart and faded just as quick. “Time and the stress of my career changed him.”
By age thirty, Brent's physique had softened with extra weight. He never looked
less handsome to her, but it bothered him, especially as her body continued to firm and tighten with her pursuit of fitness modeling. “He grew angry and unhappy, and I was the target for his bitterness, a way to redirect his insecurities from himself. That realization didn't come until later. At the time, I felt like a constant disappointment.”