The words whipped from his lips, snapping through the air with enough force that she felt them. She chanced a glance up and immediately flinched at the look on his face. It was . . . terrifying.
“You heard,” she whispered in only a slightly louder voice.
“You’re telling me that motherfucker put those bruises on your face? That he split your lip?”
He advanced and she rapidly took a step backward, which only seemed to piss him off even more.
“Goddamn it, Josie, I’m not going to hurt you! I’ll never fucking hurt you.”
The words were explosive. Not exactly soothing and yet she took comfort in the vehemence with which he made the vow. So much so that she took a step back toward him so they now only stood a foot apart.
His entire body still vibrated with rage. His green eyes were nearly black, the green just a thin ring around the dilated pupils. And then he raised his hands, slowly, as if he feared frightening her. He cupped her face in his palms, his touch infinitely gentle, and she didn’t know how he could possibly pull that off when the rest of his body was taut with fury and his expression was so black.
But that touch was so exquisitely tender that she literally melted into his hands. She felt no pain even though her face was still painful to touch several days after the incident. He brushed his fingers over the bruise and then traced the split at her lip, so lightly that she nearly didn’t feel it.
“I’ll kill him.”
Ash’s voice was absolute. The resolution in his voice made her blood chill in her veins because she believed him. In this moment, she believed him absolutely capable of killing the man who’d hurt her. Her pulse leapt and her breathing accelerated as panic shot down into her belly.
“No! Ash, please. Just let it go. This is why I didn’t want to tell you. Why I haven’t called.”
She would have said more, but he put his finger over the uninjured part of her mouth to silence her.
“Let it go?”
His tone was deadly.
“You want me to fucking let it go when that motherfucker put his hands on you? What the fuck happened, Josie, and I want every goddamn detail. Nothing left out. I want to know when this happened. I want to know how many times he hit you. And above all, I want to know why the hell you didn’t immediately come to me or call me, the instant this happened.”
Her mouth went slack against his finger. And then, as if he changed his mind entirely, he pulled away, turning to survey her living room, glancing toward the open archway to her bedroom.
“I’m taking you to my apartment,” he said firmly. “You’re moving in with me.”
“Wait. What? Ash, I can’t—”
“This isn’t negotiable, Josie.” His eye glittered with purpose and his stance was rigid, brooking no compromise. “You’re coming with me. Now let’s go into your bedroom. You’re going to sit on the bed and tell me what you need packed for tonight. Tomorrow we can go over what you have to have or want moved to my place and I’ll arrange for someone to come in and have everything brought over. But when we have this conversation about that son of a bitch—and we are having that conversation—it’s going to be in a place where you feel absolutely safe. A place where you know no harm will come to you. That’s in stone.”
Her mouth dropped open even farther, but even amid the utter shock of his proclamation came . . . relief. Comfort. But mostly overwhelming relief. The decision had been wrested from her hands, and at the moment she embraced that. Her worries—fears—surrounding Ash seemed silly now. That she’d even entertained that he might be like Michael or that she would be entering an even worse situation than the one she’d just come from seemed absurd.