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  Saige keeps glancing at me under her thick lashes as I stare at the phone. She’s held off on her questions, but I can tell she’s busting to ask about what’s happened with me the years we were apart. Those caramel eyes study my every move and I’m hit with just how hard it’s going to be not ravishing her hot, tempting body.

  Jackson’s voice pulls me from my sex-fogged thoughts. Other than Saige, I’ve missed him the most. I don’t blame him for cutting me out of his life when I left home. I blame Dad. Jackson hasn’t thought for himself since we were kids, despite my trying to get him to. That didn’t change when I tried to talk him into leaving with me. He refused. I tried to call him several times for over a year after I left but he never returned any of my calls. Finally, I gave up and changed my number. It hurt too much waiting on a call that would never come. I have to fight the lump in my throat when I hear the jovial tone of Jackson’s voice in the message. I haven’t seen or heard any kind of happiness in him since we were kids.

  So, your sorry ass actually listened to mine and decided to stay away? Talk about bad timing to take up doing what I tell you, little bro. I know I’m older and all that, but that’s never been a factor for you in the past with that damn stubborn ass head of yours.

  There’s a long pause and I almost think the message is over when I hear Jackson’s voice again, serious and low this time.

  We have a lot to talk about when you get home. I’ve missed you…we both have.

  Tears burn the back of my eyes, and I force them not to fall. I’m secure enough in my manhood to know a few tears don’t make me a wuss, but with finding out the shit Saige went through, and hearing Dad and Jackson’s voice after years of not talking with them, I’m afraid if I let the first tear fall, I’ll cry like a baby and there’s no way in hell that’s going to happen.

  Saige lifts herself to where she’s on her knees on the edge of the bed. Her dark hair tumbles over her shoulders and I want to tangle my fingers in the sexy waves. Those caramel eyes melt into mine as she lets out a low sigh, “I don’t know what is going on with you right now. Hell, I don’t have much of a clue about what has gone on with you for the past four years, but whatever happened or didn’t happen, I know that you are a good man.” Her fingers wrap around my wrists, tugging me until I lean close enough to kiss those sweet lips. “And a man who doesn’t get lost in bullshit and mistakes, no matter who was the one who made them. I shouldn’t have ever lost sight of that. So don’t you go being a dumbass and lose sight of it, too.”

  A low laugh rumbles up my throat, “And, you’re not a girl who minces words.”

  “I never did have a problem saying what’s on my mind.” She winks, giving me a tilted grin, “So, why don’t you tell me what’s on yours right now?”

  “You,” I breathe. Her touch erases the rest of the world, even the shit of what went on with my father and brother. “Everything inside my head is full of nothing but you.”

  “There are so many questions I have, Jensen,” she whispers.

  “You can ask them all but the answer will stay the same. Everything that has happened. All the good, the bad, and the gray in between. The answer will always point back to you.”

  Her eyes darken, and her bottom lip slips between her teeth.

  “Maybe I didn’t say that right,” I back track, freeing her lip with my thumb. “You are all that’s good with me; it’s always been that way. All the other bullshit is just semantics from choices you had no control over. You and bad just aren’t compatible, pretty girl, so don’t even go there.”

  She opens her mouth, then closes it. A flash of innocence mixed with something I can’t quite place brightens her eyes before her smile returns, melting every piece of me. Her fingers slip from my wrists to the edge of her shirt. All innocence is gone. The fabric of her shirt rustles quietly as she pulls it over her head. Those fingers move to her back, undoing her bra. One lacey black strap falls down her shoulder, and I swell to a rock hard state for the hundredth time today. When the rest of the black lace falls to the bed, I nearly explode with need.

  The tips of her dark waves curve around the soft mounds of her creamy breasts. Fuck, I want to wrap that hair around my wrist and trace my tongue over every single spot it has touched before taking her nipples between my lips and teeth until she begs me to bury myself deep inside of her and give her everything she wants from me and so much more.

  “Since you don’t want to talk, then I want to make damn sure that head of yours stays full of nothing but good things, at least for tonight.”

  Taking her hand, I slide it against the hardened bulge ready to burst through my zipper, letting her feel exactly what she does to me. “That won’t be a problem, pretty girl.”

  Her soft laugh kills me, and I let my eyes roam, feasting on the beautiful girl who turned into the breathtaking woman in front of me. When my gaze falls to her right side, I swear under my breath, backing away. “Did they do that to you, Saige?” I growl, ready to snap the neck of every fucking one of them who hurt her.

  Saige’s hand quickly lays flat against her side, but it doesn’t cover all the scars. Shaking her head, she swallows hard, “No…I did.”

  “What?” My head pounds as hard as my chest. “What do you mean, you did that?” I ask slowly, scared as hell to hear her answer of how she got scars that look like those do.

  “I had to get away. I couldn’t stay there any longer,” she whispers. The pain and residual fear in her eyes kills me, and I want to take all of her pain away.

  “What happened, baby?” I ask, taking her face in my hands.

  “It’s over. It doesn’t matter now.”

  Her forced smile doesn’t fool me. I know she doesn’t want for me to hear what they did, what I helped cause. “It matters. How the hell couldn’t it?” Failing miserably at trying to calm the building rage from what those bastards did to her, I take her hand, pulling her into my arms, “Tell me. Please.”

  Saige is quiet for several seconds before she lets out a resigned sigh. I pull her with me as I lean back against the headboard and slide her between my legs, softly brushing my fingertips against the long, thin scars that have left their jagged print on her smooth skin.

  “When my parents pulled into the private institution, I lost it, trying to get away when two of the men pulled me from the car and started dragging me inside. I started pleading with my father to take me back home, then I swore that if he just told them that I didn’t have to stay, I would leave; he would never have to see me again if that’s what he wanted. He just shook his head and looked away as the men restrained me and locked me inside a small, empty room. There was just a toilet and one tiny window towards the ceiling that I couldn’t reach.”

  Saige stops, her eyes full of concern when she looks up at me, “I meant what I said about filling your head with only good things tonight. Almost nothing about this is good. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  Hell, no, I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear of anything that has hurt Saige in any way. “I need to,” I manage to answer. I need to know what happened so I can do my damnedest to try to help her put it behind her for good.

  “They kept me in that room for seven or eight days. I lost count. The only time I heard anyone else was when they slipped my food through a sliding drawer made into the door. I later learned that this was their way of breaking in the newbies, trying to kill their spirit so they could rebuild them into whatever they felt they should be. But what they didn’t know is that it did the opposite to me. I had all that time to think and feel just what was inside of me. I thought a lot about you, about us. I also thought about how you always told me that I was so much stronger than I knew. I found that strength in that room.”

  I brush a lock of her hair behind her ear and press my lips against the corner of her eye. She leans into me, letting me hold her for a minute before she begins again. “When Dr. Spearson saw me after they finally let me out, he was at a loss with how I didn’t react the way he
expected. I didn’t break or swear that I would cooperate. I just laughed in his face after he told me that I was sent there because of my delusions and he was going to help make them go away. He didn’t give a shit about me. That was clear from the second I felt him. He tried to get me to tell him what I can do. Well, what he thought that I thought I could do, anyway. I refused to talk. It didn’t matter, my parents had already told him enough. The funny thing is, if I felt he really was trying to help me, I might have worked with him to see if there was a way to get rid of what’s wrong with me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Saige,” I tell her firmly. “What you have is a-”

  “Don’t you dare say it’s a gift,” she cuts me off, vehemently shaking her head. Blinking back tears she continues, not wanting to hear my take on her abilities. “Dr. Spearson gave me pills and put me in a room with four other girls. There was no privacy. One wall of the room was a window with no covering and we were observed all the time, except at night. Two of the girls had schizophrenia and would talk to people who weren’t there. I had always wondered if people who did this really did see or hear someone real, or at least someone who used to be real, like a spirit or something, but I felt nothing other than the emotions from the four others in the room. I don’t know if that means they really are crazy or if I can only feel living people. I know I can sense someone’s death, but I’ve never felt them after they’re gone. Anyway, I felt so sorry for them being ridiculed for how they are.”

  “What were the other two girls in there for?” I ask, trying to process what Saige just said. I never thought of ghosts or the things she just mentioned before, even with being around hers and Jackson’s paranormal powers. I know Saige has an open mind, but I’ve never considered what she apparently has thought a lot about. Not to be insensitive, but some people just have issues and there’s nothing paranormal about it.

  “One had severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and the other had some kind of paranoid disorder and anorexia.” A tear slides down her cheek and her fists clench tightly as she wraps her arms around her legs. “They would tie that poor girl to a chair and force feed her, prying her mouth open and roughly shove the food inside when she refused to eat. Nothing those bastards did even came close to trying to help any of them. They didn’t follow any of the treatments or ethics real institutions have,” her voice drips with rage and contempt. “I wanted to help them, but I didn’t know how, other than try to calm them when I felt their anxiety or fears. Then, I couldn’t even do that when the pills Dr. Spearson was giving me made all emotions disappear. He turned me into a zombie. I couldn’t feel anything from anyone, including myself, which was so much worse than feeling everything.”

  I don’t know what to do to make her feel better at the moment, so I just hold her and try to hide the dark thoughts of painful retribution in my head.

  “I stopped taking the pills, refusing to open my mouth until they tied me to that damn chair and pried open my mouth as well. When I spit the pill into the face of the man who tried to shove his fingers down my throat, he became very angry.” Her voice trails and I have an idea of what she isn’t wanting to say.

  Fucking bastard!

  “Then they dragged me to Dr. Spearson’s office while he called my parents. They gagged me during the conversation so my dad couldn’t hear me.” She lets out a bitter laugh, “Like it would have mattered anyway. Dr. Spearson asked if my father gave permission for more extreme measures since I was refusing treatment.”

  “What did your father say?”

  “His exact words were, ‘Do whatever it takes for her to understand she can’t continue to show the shit inside her fucked-up head. She can’t come back home until she is no longer an embarrassment to our family’.”

  “Sonofabitch!” I growl. I always knew her dad was an emotionally abusive prick, but I didn’t know he would go this far.

  “That’s when they started the shock therapy.” Her entire body stiffens and a thin sheen of sweat breaks out on the nape of her neck.

  My heart hurts so badly, I want to rip it from my chest when she begins to tremble, remembering the horror of what she went through. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll never let anything happen to you ever again. You’re safe with me, and I’m never letting you go.” The tears I was trying to hold back slowly roll down my face as I rock her in my arms.

  “I-I couldn’t take anymore. I had to leave and began sneaking out of my room at night, learning the layout of the building. Those are the times I called you, leaving the number and time to call me back,” her voice shakes, and I squeeze my eyes shut, hating myself right now. “I had seen the bouncer-slash-nurse give one of the girls a shot that knocked her out when she had an episode, and I put the same medicine in a needle and hid it in a vase one night. When they took me out of the room for another treatment, I waited until we were passing by the table next to the medical lab and I grabbed that needle, sticking it against the asshole’s neck. I took his keys and unlocked the door and ran as fast as I could until I reached the gate, but the key to the gate wasn’t with the rest of his keys. I could feel them coming, so I climbed the fence and went over the barbed wire. That’s how I got the scars. They were worth it, though, to never have to set foot in hell again. Then, I ran through the woods and didn’t stop until my body gave out. I called the authorities about how the so-called Dr. and his thugs treated the patients. After all that happened, I knew that I could never go back home.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I breathe into her hair, kissing the top of her head.

  “You’re not to blame.” Saige pulls out of my arms and places her palms flush against my face, “I can’t get over what happened to me if you continue to blame yourself, so, please stop. I need you to stop. For me.”

  “I’ll do anything for you.” I will. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.

  The edges of her lips curve and she smiles through her tears. “Love me. That’s all I’ll ever need from you.”

  “I’ve never stopped, pretty girl. And I never will stop loving you.”

  “Good.” Her eyes darken again, but differently this time. “There is one more thing I need from you.”

  “Just tell me and it’s done.”

  “Make love to me, Jensen.”

  I want to make love to her so badly right now, I can barely breathe, but I don’t want her worrying I’ll leave her once I have her. It would kill me if she’s afraid I’d do what Wes did. “There’s nothing in this universe that I want to do more right now than make love to you, but I want you to be sure you really want this. Our emotions are heightened and I don’t want any regrets.”

  She opens her mouth to protest, but I press my mouth against hers, silencing what I know will change my mind. My fingers trail down her skin and my lips follow. Her soft pants fill the room as I slowly trace each long, thin line of the scars on her side before doing the same with my tongue. “I will wake up each morning thinking of new ways I can take your pain away and make you feel only all that’s good. I will always be there for you, Saige.”

  Her body trembles underneath my touch. A low moan escapes her lips as my fingers slide lower, slipping inside her jeans, as I run my fingers over her panties. I feel the soft cotton already moistened from what I’m doing to her.

  “Since I saw you again, you’ve already rescued me from the past. Just be you, Jensen, and I’ll have everything that’s good.”

  Damn if she didn’t bring tears to my eyes again. I swear I’ll strip the dark from her life. Even if it takes me forever to do it, starting with tonight. My mouth conquers hers as I lay her down, undoing the button of her jeans. Her eyes never leave mine as I slide the denim down her long legs, and the love staring back at me is everything I want and need out of this life. When she’s free of her jeans, I lay beside her, taking her chin and pulling her lips to mine before running my fingers down her neck, between the firm mounds of her breasts, fanning my fingers across the edge of each one before slowly tracing the full, firm lines
below.

  She moans when I rub her nipple in between my forefinger and thumb, gently tugging. “Ahhh,” she groans as I continue playing with her nipples. Shifting on the bed, she scoots closer to me.

  My hand palms the warm, wet cotton between her legs, and her thighs spread for more of my touch. The cotton continues to dampen as I take my time tracing the edge of the material, my fingertips teasing the soft skin before I trace the outline of her covered folds.

  “Please,” she whispers, closing her eyes, and I slip the panties off her, trailing kisses up her leg, thigh, flat stomach, stopping at her perk, taut nipples, making my dick throb like hell.

  “I need you, Jensen,” she rasps, and that’s all I needed to hear as I slip my fingers down through her soft curls and glide them over her folds before dipping the tips into her hot, wet opening.

  She is so damn slick for me. Circling my finger, I find the spot that makes her come undone. Her body rises to my touch as she fists the sheets. Her moans are guttural and so fucking sexy as she tries to stifle them by biting her lip. Slipping two fingers inside while I keep my thumb rubbing in circles, I nearly explode watching her come apart.

  “Let me hear what you’re feeling, pretty girl,” I demand, plunging my fingers deeper.

  Her moans become harder, more frenzied, as I increase the pressure of my thumb rubbing against her soaking heat. Thrusting my fingers in and out, I take her nipple in my mouth, grazing it between my teeth, and Saige’s back arches off the bed, pressing her nipple deeper against my tongue.

  “Please, Jensen-please,” she urges, and I oblige.

  The tip of my tongue swirls against the hardened tip of her breast as my fingers slip in and out, up and down, and she bucks, pressing herself against my hand. The way she moves, responding to my touch, is too damn much and I need to feel her, even if I’m not going to make love to her tonight. Shifting Saige to her side, I slip my fingers out from inside her depths, and she whimpers. The smile covering my face is cocky as hell, but I don’t care about being modest as my chest and head swell with her reaction from the loss of my touch. Shedding my jeans and shirt, I lay in nothing but my black boxers. The cotton was already tight against my thighs, but now my dick seems to be busting the seams needing to find Saige, where it belongs.