“Me too. I’ll never forgive him for what he did to Talon. I’ll never forgive any of them, my mother especially.”

“What did he say about…” She hedged. “Daphne being alive?”

“Not much, except that she became unfit to be our mother. Why she’s here, and why she carries a doll around thinking it’s Marj—”

Ruby sat up. “She thinks the doll is Marj? She calls it Angela.”

“I know. Remember when we told you about the birth certificate we found?” I quickly told her the story of Marjorie’s original name.

“Oh. Wow.” She shook her head. “I feel incredibly stupid. It never even dawned on me that she could be Daphne.”

“There’s no reason why it should have.”

“Of course there is. I’m a detective. I—” She looked down at my hand. “We need to get you cleaned up. You’re pretty scratched up.” She moved toward the edge of the bed.

“It can wait.” I pulled her back and kissed her.

She responded, but after a few beautiful minutes, she pulled away again. “I’m taking care of you. I hope this house has first aid supplies.” She stood and held up her torn pajama top. “What am I going to wear out of here?”

I smiled. “Don’t care.”

She shook her head. “You’re incorrigible. I guess I’ll go walking around this strange place naked, then.”

“You won’t get any complaints from me.”

A few minutes later, Ruby returned with some washcloths, antibacterial ointment, and Band-Aids.

“Ow!”

She rubbed at my scratches with the warm cloth. “Sorry. But some of these gashes are pretty deep. You’re a good clotter, though.”

“You sweet talker, you.”

She laughed. “Hey. Go with it. You’re lucky they’re clotting up. Still, they need antibacterial ointment and bandages.” She looked at the bed. “You bled all over the white comforter.”

“Again. Don’t care.”

“Truthfully, neither do I.” She applied some ointment to the largest of the wounds and added a bandage. “The rest of these aren’t too bad. What were you thinking? Breaking a window with your fist and then sticking your whole arm in?”

“I was thinking if I didn’t get you inside this house and me inside of you I was going to fucking explode.”

She nodded. “I felt the same way. I felt really guilty about it too. We’re surrounded by people being held against their will and being abused in the most horrible ways. Plus, Juliet is fucked up and needs me. But all I wanted was you.”

“Don’t feel guilty. Juliet seems like she’s doing okay, and there’s nothing else we can do without backup right now. Not until our fathers decide to be truthful with us.”

What I didn’t say was that I was feeling guilty too. I’d left Talon alone with my father in that damned office. He was the one who’d suffered the most because of our father’s little business venture, and he didn’t have his woman here to comfort him as I did.

Guilt.

All three of us had harbored a ton of it over the years, probably Joe most of all. Part of me wished with all my heart that he was here with us, but part of me knew it was better that he wasn’t. Joe would have done what I hadn’t. He would have taken a fist to our father…and then another. Brad Steel would have fought back, but Joe would have won. He was younger, bigger, and stronger. Not that the asshole didn’t deserve it, but if we were going to figure this out, we needed him in one piece.

“Who do you think decorated this place?” Ruby asked. “When I was looking around for first aid supplies, I wandered into the kitchen and family room. They’re all white too. It’s freaky.”

“Hell if I know.” And I didn’t care.

“Just seems strange. All the white.” She sighed. “There. You’re all set. I’m no nurse, but I think I did a pretty good job.”

“Baby, you’re the only nurse I’ll ever need. You can be my naughty nurse.” I pulled her down to me and kissed her.

And I hardened once more.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ruby

His lips were so soft, so gentle with me now. We’d both gotten the urgency out of our systems, and now our lovemaking was tender and slow. He laid me back down on the bed and kissed my cheeks, my ears, my neck, sending shivers coursing through me. He swirled his tongue inside my ear, and goose bumps erupted on my skin. I tingled all over, and my core began to flutter.

How could I want him again? So soon? But wanting had never been an issue since I’d met Ryan Steel. I’d been in heat since I first laid eyes on him when I was an inexperienced virgin.

I had a lot of experience now, but there were still more things to share with this amazing man. I couldn’t get enough of his lips and tongue on my skin. He seemed determined to cover every inch, and I had no plans to stop him.

He did stop, though, for a moment, and he gazed into my eyes, his own burning. “You’re so beautiful, Ruby. Your dark hair is fanned out on that white pillow like a soft curtain. Your eyes are sparkling. You look so gorgeous, so thoroughly used.” He smiled.

Then he went back to work.

Lips on my shoulders, my chest, the globes of my breasts.

Tongue on my abdomen, in my navel, in the crease between my thigh and groin.

Then fingers…squeezing my nipples, twisting them. I gasped, squirming, my pussy wanting attention. But as he moved his lips downward, kissing my inner thighs and then my knees, his fingers left my nipples and trailed over my abdomen, and then he entwined them in the short hair of my bush.

My clit was throbbing, crying out for attention. Our combined musk wafted in the air, and I inhaled, letting it infuse my body.

Ryan traveled down my calves to my feet, kissing my toes, sucking them, tickling my instep with his tongue.

“Turn over, love,” he said.

I obeyed, and he began his way back up my body, his lips journeying over my heels, my calves, tickling the inside of my knees. Then up my thighs and between the cheeks of my ass.

I shuddered when he licked me there. So wrong yet so right.

“Spread your legs, Ruby,” he commanded.

I hadn’t disobeyed him yet, and I had no desire to begin now. I complied, and he spread the globes of my ass.

“So beautiful,” he said. “I’ll have you here one day. When you’re ready.” Then he gave one cheek a light slap.

I shivered. The dream… He’d slapped me in that creepy dream, and I’d liked it. Loved it…but then the dream had gone down a different path.

I erased the fractured images from my mind and tried to concentrate on how I was feeling now. I’d longed to be reunited with Ryan, and no way was some stupid dream going to spoil it.

He’d slapped me there once before, and my reaction had been ambivalent. It was now as well, but I couldn’t escape the fact that beneath my contradictory feelings was a heat from his hand that traveled to my clit.

He tongued my asshole, gently at first and then more forcibly, seeking entrance. “Relax,” he whispered.

I tried. I’d enjoyed this before, but this time he was jabbing harder.

“Better. Yeah, that’s better, baby. Let me in. Mmm.” The point of his tongue breached my rim. “So sweet.”

I buried my face in the white pillow and let him do what he was determined to do.

And God…it felt so fucking good.

I closed my eyes, drowning in the pleasure as he pushed in and out and then soothed me with long licks all the way down to my clit. Then he moved upward, kissing my back, trailing his lips along my spine until I quivered. Then up my neck to my head, where he kissed my hair and inhaled.

And then he slid his cock into me gently.

I let out a soft moan.

I was sore from all the frantic fucking we’d done, and his entrance this time was oddly soothing, as though I was meant for this. We, together, were meant for it.

He made love to me slowly, sweetly, my walls hugging his cock every time he entered me. I felt so full, so complete. That emptiness I’d felt since I’d woken up in that room with Juliet was gone now.

Gone for good.

“So nice, baby,” he whispered against my neck, kissing it. “So perfect.”

He continued to pump in and out of me, and soon the familiar tingles in my clit emerged and I soared into climax. Every time was different yet the same. The feeling of two souls meeting and becoming one.

“That’s it, love. Come. Come for me. For us.” He thrust forcefully into me, his own orgasm erupting.

When his cock stopped pulsing, he withdrew and lay on his back. I turned to face him. His face and body were gleaming, his hair sticking to his neck. He’d never looked more magnificent.

“Three times in a little over an hour,” I said. “That’s got to be some kind of record.”

He chuckled. “I wanted you. Needed you. When I saw you… I was just so relieved that you were safe, and after talking to my father…” He sighed. “It’s all just too much to handle. Both he and Daphne have been alive all this time.”

“I know it’s a lot to digest. But you’ll get through it. You and your siblings are some of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Your sisters-in-law too. You’re all amazing.”