* * * *
Sunny leaned her forehead against the window of the car and closed her eyes. She was exhausted—there was no other way to put it. She felt it down to her marrow, a tiredness that no amount of sleep could fix.
Garrison, Trent and Connor had stayed with her at the veterinary hospital the entire time, even after Kat had left. They’d helped coordinate the people who’d repaired the door, stayed close when the police took her statement and helped to explain the details about Spike.
While she had wanted distance from them, she couldn’t deny how much she leaned on them, how much of the stress and details they’d taken for her. When it came time to leave, though, Garrison had made it perfectly clear that she couldn’t go home. Without knowing for sure who had broken in or whether they could come back, her safe haven wasn’t so safe anymore. So, instead, he’d offered to drive her to his house.
Ortheirhouse, as it turned out, since she hadn’t realized the men lived together. She should have, in hindsight, since they were so close.
She might have argued—being in such close quarters with three dominant men hadn’t been in her plans—but between the shock of the incident and how many unknowns there still were, she acquiesced.
She’d seen Spike before they’d left, but the hospital had needed to keep him for at least a few days. He hadn’t been awake, but the sight of his leg—or what was left of it—bandaged had said it was for the best he hadn’t woken yet.
She thought about how he’d loved to run and play fetch, how his life would change when he did wake, when he couldn’t do the things he’d cherished before. In an odd way, she understood that. She remembered after leaving Tanner, how all the things she’d loved, she hadn’t been able to do anymore, the things that had made life worth living that he’d stolen. He had tainted everything.
Sunny pushed off that thought. She couldn’t think about it, because each time she did, she found herself stuck in a spiral—guilt, fear, all of it. Instead, she let out a slow breath.
If she hadn’t been so numb, she might have worried about being in their space, at being in their home, at being so alone with them. It would have set off her anxiety any other time, but after tonight?
What more could they possibly do?
The sedan shook as Garrison took it up a steep driveway, about fifteen minutes from the veterinarian. She wasn’t tracking too well, but she’d guess they were about thirty from her house. Garrison pulled the car up in front of a large but unassuming home. “Go on in, sweet. I’ll pull the car into the garage and check in that everything is handled.”
The thought of forcing her feet to even move felt insurmountable. Just when she felt trapped in some hole, when she couldn’t imagine getting up, someone reached a hand out to her.
It was a lifeline, something tossed out to her just as she started to drown and pull her back above the water.
She took the hand, and Connor pulled her out of the car, then tucked her against his side. He led her, not asking her questions, not demanding she do anything but follow him. He gave her a quick tour of the house, showed her the kitchen, where to get water, the bathroom. She didn’t take in any of it, as if her brain were too full to accept any additional information.
After making their way through the house, Connor pulled her into a room that she was sure was his. It was in the slight smell of hay, in the masculine, faded furniture and the old leather jacket hanging from a hook on the back of the door.
“You need to sleep,” he said, his rough voice something for her to hold on to. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
Will I?
It didn’t seem possible right then.
He grasped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. Her bra came next, him unhooking it with ease. He placed the items in a hamper, then crouched to slide her pants off, leaving her underwear in place.
Despite the fact that he was stripping her naked, she didn’t feel ogled. It didn’t make her anxiety rise, but whether that was because she trusted him or she was too tired to manage it, she wasn’t sure. He did the motions efficiently, as if they had nothing to do with sex.
Which made no sense to her. In her experience with Dominants,everythinghad to do with sex.
He turned and plucked a T-shirt from his closet, and when he slid it on her, it hung to her mid-thigh.
“You should be more comfortable in that,” he said, then used a hand on the small of her back to push her toward the bed.
The covers were warm, and when Connor pulled them over her, she had to admit…there was an odd sense of safety there. Everything smelled like him, and already it felt familiar and let her relax.
Connor went to leave, but Sunny caught his wrist, looking up at him, not sure what she wanted. She wanted him to fix things, to make her world make sense again, to let her wake up and go back to when she’d been happy.
None of that was possible, though, so all she wanted was to not be alone.
Connor stared down at her and, after a moment, he nodded. He extracted his wrist, turned the light off then crawled into the bed behind her.
She closed her eyes as he rubbed his large hand over her side. It had been years since she’d fallen asleep beside anyone, and even longer since it had been anyone she trusted. Still, her panic slumbered, and she could only relax into the rhythmic motion of his hand.
Tomorrow would come no matter what she did. She couldn’t avoid it, couldn’t go backward, couldn’t make the whole damned day unhappen.