I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever felt so . . . cared for.
Or how little I felt like I deserved it.
After a while I start to notice the droplets clinging to Dom’s chest, the stubbled line of his jaw . . . the bloodied gash along his arm. Lips tightening, I reach up to touch it gently, rubbing some of the blood beneath it away.
“That’s a present from that sniper, you know,” Dom tells me, not taking his eyes from where he’s sluicing water over my neck.
My fingers pause.
“I was caught between the trees. A few more shots, and he might have had me.”
I study his face but see no sign he’s lying to make me feel better.
He meets my eyes. “You very well might have saved my life, doing what you did.”
Dom’s words burrow beneath the numbness. Shaking my head, I keep wiping at the blood on his arm. His arm. Just a slight change of angle and it could have been his chest.
“He didn’t need to die,” I whisper, finally. “I could have stopped him without . . . doing that.”
He turns my chin so I can’t look away from him. “Why didn’t you?”
“What?”
“If you could have just stopped him, why didn’t you?” he repeats.
“I—” I try to pull my chin away, but he has a good grip. Beau’s hands are soft in my hair. “He attacked me, he . . . he tried to throw me off the tree.”
Dom nods. “So you stabbed him.”
I flinch. “I just tried to stop myself from falling. I didn’t mean to. He— I—”
“So he threw you off the tree and you tried to catch yourself and you both ended up falling. Seems to me like he made his own bed.”
“Stop. You’re making it sound like—”
“Like you were defending yourself,” he interrupts. “Like you were defending us. You saved your own life, and mine, and the only reason he’s dead is because he tried to hurt us.”
I swallow, hard. Another memory flickers. Not of brown eyes, but an ugly snarl. “Bitch,” he’d called me, right before he threw me to my death.
Beau tugs my head back until I’m looking at him, almost upside down. “Dom and me, we killed eight between us out there.
You hatin’ on us as much as you’re hatin’ on yourself right now?”
“Of course not,” I say impatiently. It’s not the same thing.
As if he can see the thought on my face, his eyes flare. “It sure is the same thing. You don’t get to be down on yourself for doing what you had to unless you’re going to put the same blame on us.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the words don’t come. My brow tangles. What else could I have done? I could have stayed where they left me, or stayed in my tree, but then what would have happened? That sniper had them pinned. Would I rather Dom or Beau be killed? My gut lurches at the thought.
I decided weeks ago that I didn’t blame them for shooting the men hunting me. They kept me safe.
I kept them safe too.
Another wave of water washes over me and this time, it washes away more than the filth on my skin. The acid in my gut seems to ease away with their words, their care. It’s like my doctor just punctured my flesh and let the poison out, right before it could fester, and Dom bandaged me back up.
A sweet, heavy pressure rolls into my chest. Gratitude, and maybe something else. Something I’m not quite ready for just yet, but wonderful and hopeful all the same.
Leaning forward, I press my lips against Dom’s wound.
Chapter 29
Eden
SURVIVAL TIP #293
Cleanliness is good for the soul,
but being dirty might just be your natural state.
Embrace it.
A breath sighs out of Dom, like relief or maybe satisfaction, and it pebbles my damp skin. He cups my cheek and presses a kiss to the top of my head. It confuses me a little. Dom is stern, imposing, bossy. I didn’t know he could be so tender.
Maybe Beau brings it out in him.
Or maybe I’m starting to.
“I’m sorry I didn’t do what you told me to,” I murmur against his skin. Which is partly true. It’s also partly a lie, I realize. I may regret the life on my hands, but they’re right—I can’t regret keeping them safe. With a settling sense of clarity, I know that I would do the same a dozen or more times if I had to.
Despite the chilly water, Dom is still hot to the touch, and I keep my forehead pressed to his bicep. For the warmth, of course. I shiver, though not from the cold, and Beau shifts closer as well, until I’m fitted snugly between them. Awareness floods me of how close we are, how naked. Just a tangle of limbs and heated skin pressing against each other in the river.
Dom hums. “And after we had such a specific chat about that, too.”
His tone is dry again, so I know he’s not too mad. I lift my head.
“I just realized it was a trap,” I explain in a rush. “They could have stayed hidden and not touched the cameras, so there was probably more of them, and you were going to walk into the middle of it, and I just couldn’t let you—”
Beau lets out a snort behind me and bends to nip at my earlobe. “’Course it was a trap, you little idiot. It’s always a trap.”
Dom rolls his eyes, but a smile lurks in his mouth. “Cute of you to worry, though.”
Glaring, I pinch his nipple. He lets out a sound suspiciously close to a yelp and bats me away, then snags my wrists again in one of his. Beau chokes on a laugh but makes no move to help. His fingers trace around my hip, then skate down my inner thigh.
Golden gaze narrow, Dom ducks his head until his lips brush against mine. “You’re becoming more of a brat by the second.”
With every word, his lips tantalize me, a barely there caress. My tongue darts out to tease at his lips, though I almost faint at my own daring. It is Dom after all. But he’s flirting, I’m sure he is, and he just went to all that trouble to pull me out of my own head. He wouldn’t do that if he were indifferent. That goes above being nice, surely. I feel skittish about making assumptions after Jasper’s rejection, but . . . I felt his hands on me before. His body under me. There was no mistaking his interest then.
Or now, for that matter. I arch closer to him, and Dom’s eyes simmer with amusement.
I worried, for a moment, that between the heavy conversation and the frigid water that his interest might have . . . deflated.
But it’s still there. All big and heavy and . . . interested.
Dom snags my bottom lip between his teeth with warning pressure, gaze locked on mine. Then he sucks it into his mouth, tongue swiping at the small hurt. I sigh, lids drooping.
Beau laughs softly and kisses the back of my neck. “Hmm, so it’s like that, is it?”
Closing the last half-inch between us, he presses his length against my ass and lower back. I wriggle back brazenly. The angle makes Dom’s dick brush against my stomach, and I tremble. Two dicks. What do I even do with two?
However it works, I’m ready to try.
My arousal from earlier still burns through me, but it’s no longer soured by bitterness and shame. A bit of sadness, maybe, but there’s also gratitude, and trust. I want these men, these kind, selfless, brave men who protected me and gave me a home for the first time in my life. These men can use me in any way they want.