Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

staying still was excruciating, he waited, seeing what she would do.

Her lips twisted, and now he saw that anger simmering that Christina had warned was there. “I don’t have to see to give great head, do I? Even with this face I can be a pretty good whore. Hell, better, because I won’t rely on my looks.”

Before he gave himself too much time to think it through, Peter pushed her backward onto her ass. She landed hard.

“Ouch,” she yelped. When he yanked her up by the front of the shirt, thank God she reacted as he’d hoped. Twisting to break free, she kicked, taking him below the knee. If she’d been in shape, she might have caused him real damage, but in this case it barely registered. Making sure she had her feet under her, he pushed her off him.

She stumbled back and went rigid, stretching her hands out around her, floundering. It killed him, but he forced himself to remain ruthless. “This is what you learned in basic combat training. This weak-assed shit.”

Shock coursed her features, but then her face hardened like a weathered statue. “I haven’t exactly been keeping combat ready,” she snapped.

“Yeah, I noticed. You’ve been sitting on your ever-widening butt—”

Her temper didn’t ignite. It exploded, frustration uncapped in a way he didn’t anticipate.

Snarling like a wild animal, she swung and overbalanced. He caught her as she fell into him, but immediately tossed her back to her feet rather than gathering her to him the way every cell of him craved to do.

Despite the disorientation, she whirled, baring her teeth. He saw the flash of fire he wanted and kept pushing, ignoring the ache in his own chest. “You can fight. You just won’t. You’ve given up. You’re lucky—”

“Not the fucking ‘You’re lucky’ speech again. I swear to God, the next person that says that to me—”

“Will what? Get a tap from that little-girl fist of yours? I’m getting a hard-on from it.

Come tickle me some more.”

She screamed and lashed out again, but this time she focused. Her fist landed against his palm, held square in front of his face. His jaw set in satisfaction. There’s my girl. Wouldhave snapped my head back. His fingers closed over her tense fingers, holding them as she quivered.

“Damn it. I can’t . . .”

“Yeah.” He touched her neck carefully, cupped the side of it, then squeezed, hard. “Yeah, sweetheart, you can. But you need help.”

“Not you.” She shook her head, and tears seeped out, destroying him. “Not from you.

Damn it, Peter, I want to have some pride left.”

“You’re pissing it away, every day you sit in that chair. You smell like this room, not a human being. You’re becoming part of the furniture.” He brought her chin up to him, glad she couldn’t see the anguish in his face as he made his voice rough. “And you gave up the choice by not accepting help from anyone else. If you ever make a crack like that about being a whore again, I will fuck you up ten ways to Sunday. You won’t sit

comfortably for a month. You’re no one’s whore.”

“I can feel the scars. I look like a monster.”

“No, you don’t.” He moved his palms to her face, to the healing lines at her cheek and forehead, teasing her lashes. “Your eyes are still that pale green, like marsh grass. You’ve got a surgical scar here, and here . . . healing. Your skin is still so soft, your lips so full. . .

.” He placed one of his hands over her heart, cognizant of the rise and fall of her breast, and one against her temple, stroking the short hair there. “Heart and head. That’s all you need to heal, Dana. The rest doesn’t matter. It’s just skin. You’re beautiful to me, inside and out.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Yeah, I do. That’s what scares the shit out of you. I can bust your comfort zone wide-open. I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to live again.”

Her breathing elevated, the tracks of her tears widening. “I want you to leave,” she said brokenly.

“No, you don’t.” He swallowed, hoping it was the truth. “You’ve always taken care of yourself. You hate depending on others. You think you have to run the whole damn world without help. The only time you let it go is when you follow orders or put on a leash and collar and hand it to the right Master. But even that you had to control, and that’s why you never found him, thank God. Until you found me. I’m not going to let you control me. I’m going to help you, no matter how hard you try to drive me away. Starting right now, I’m going to prove that to you.”

“How?”

She didn’t have a comfort zone anymore. She had a big, dark hole in which she lived, the definition of isolation. But his presence seemed to shoot light into that hole, and he was right about that part—it scared the shit out of her. She wanted to cringe in the shadows, stay away from those spears of illumination and the pain they could bring. She needed him to be gone. He was supposed to be her fondest memory, not part of her desolate reality.

Instead, he shoved all her wishes aside when he answered her frightened question with action. He caught her under the arms, pushed her against the wall and put his body flush against her, lifting her off her feet.

Oh, God, he felt even better than she remembered. Those same broad shoulders, corded neck. His smell . . . Oh, she hadn’t savored his smell the way she should have.

Aftershave, soap, heated, angry male. His testosterone was at boiling point, and having someone angry at her felt incomprehensibly good. She wanted to fight with him some more, draw blood, so much rage boiling to the surface. The passive-aggressive anger she spewed in fits and starts at Christina was nowhere near the clean, white-hot