Flushed and boneless, her whole body sensitive and beyond sated, she turned off the engine and eased from the seat. She winced against the soreness between her thighs, but the tingly, uncomfortable ache reminded her of Pierce. Of the best night of her life.
He’d kept her up half the night before he’d curled her against his big furnace of a body for a couple of hours of rest…only to awaken her again with his teeth in her shoulder and his heavy erection working its way back into her snug, swollen sex with a low male groan.
The memory nearly had Brea staggering against another bomb of desire detonating inside her. The urge to throw caution to the wind—to climb back into her car and return to Pierce—assailed her. She’d give almost anything to jump into his arms again and stay for good.
That was a lovely fantasy. Maybe if she wasn’t a dutiful small-town preacher’s daughter and he wasn’t an outsider who killed for a living, they could find some way to be together. But all the what-ifs and wishes in the world weren’t going to change reality.
They were doomed.
She had given Pierce her virginity more to satisfy her own desires than to save Cutter, and she would have to both atone to God for her sin and live with her actions. But right now…she didn’t regret a thing.
Brea eased her car door shut, slung her purse over her shoulder, then, shoes in hand, crept toward her house.
“I never thought I’d see you doing the walk of shame.”
That all-too-familiar voice made her heart drop.
She whirled. “Cutter…”
Brow raised, he sauntered in her direction, eyeing her up and down as if he had no idea who she was anymore. Shame rolled through her, but she beat it back. Who was he to judge? He wasn’t her father or God. She might not have needed to give herself to Pierce Walker to save him, but she’d offered. Her heart had been in the right place…even if the rest of her had been far less altruistic.
“Listen. I can—”
“Explain?” he cut in sharply.
At the rebuke in his voice, she pressed her lips together mutely. He’d already grasped the situation. Nothing she could say, short of lying, would convince him of anything less than the truth. And she saw no point in compounding her sin with a falsehood.
“Help you home. I didn’t think you’d already be released from the hospital, and I’m sure you shouldn’t be out of bed. Why are you?”
He drew closer and clutched her arm. Even though the shadows hid the disapproval in his expression, Brea could feel it. “Been too ‘busy’ to look at your phone?”
She’d turned it off last night, and Pierce had kept her far too busy to even think about turning it back on. “Sorry.”
“I called. Repeatedly. Until three this morning. Then I sent Cage out to find you. But you weren’t home. You weren’t at the church. You weren’t at the hospital, either. Then I remembered that bastard Walker telling me—after he served as the shooter’s judge, jury, and executioner—that you were at his house. That you were waiting for him there. And sure enough, that’s where my brother found your car about an hour ago. And since there’s no way you and Walker were having a deep, existential conversation in the middle of the night, I checked myself out against doctor’s orders and had Cage drop me off at my truck so I could come after you.” Cutter clutched both of her shoulders and dragged her under the nearby streetlamp in time to see a guilty flush crawl up her face. “Dear God. What the fuck did Walker do to you?”
She winced, both at his shout and his choice of slurs. “Please lower your voice and calm down.”
“Calm down? I worried he took advantage of your naiveté. That he seduced you but…” Cutter’s grip tightened, along with his mouth, which flattened into a grim line that promised retribution. “He left his mark all over you. You reek of him. Your cheeks are whisker burned. Your lips are bruised and swollen. He fucking ravaged you.” The tightness in his voice told Brea that notion pained him. “Son of a bitch. He said you begged him to intervene on my behalf.”
Had he really thought she wouldn’t? “I-I was terrified for you.”
“Not as afraid as I’ve been for you. I knew damn well what he wanted the moment he laid eyes on you.” A scathing, cynical stare twisted his face. “He demanded you give it to him, didn’t he?”
She shook her head and tried to think of some way to explain that wouldn’t make him even angrier. “That’s not what happened.”
He clenched his jaw, turning deadly still. “Shit. Then it’s worse than I thought. Because now that I see what he’s done to you, the only other way I’ll believe you spent a night in his bed was if he forced you. By all that’s holy, I swear I’m going to kill him.”