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“You were barely eighteen, Raine”

“But I was eighteen, a legal adult I was tired of you treatingsex would prove to you that I wasn’t a kid I didn’t think you wanted inity”

“I would have killed for it”

The gravity in his tone quieted her She’d done soretted, and it had hurt hio? “If I had told you that I wanted to give it to you then…?”

“You never made me that offer, so we’ll never knohat I would have done Did Zak ht?”

Daret poured hot through her The shaain, black, ugly, devastating “You know he treated me like trash”

“Because he was a player And an asshole I banned him from Shadows after I beat the fuck out of him”

“So you tried toyou what you wanted instead of co your fragile heart needed at the time, but you took matters into your own hands and had a terrible experience Do I have that right?”

Humiliation scraped at her as fat tears burned her cheeks “Yes But I didn’t knohat to do Growing up, anything II wanted was immediately taken away, destroyed, or killed If I didn’t want any more broken CDs or dead puppies, I had to keep my mouth shut In my head, if I told Hammer how I felt, he’d only spurn ain”

Both , silenther words Then theyher, their hands and lips soothing her freshly opened wounds Ha her hair, offering comfort Liam enveloped her and tilted his head to capture her lips and s her sobs When he lifted away, he gripped her so tenderly, as if trying to keep her fro in his hands

“I would never have cast you aside, sweet girl,” Haaze in his “You’re the iven le day you’ve been with me”