I arched my back, struggled, tried to yank my hands away. “Don’t . . . please, don’t . . .”
It was like he didn’t hear me. His eyes were crazed as he secured my hands and climbed onto the bed, straddling me. Blood from his nose dripped down, its warmth hitting the fabric of my top, soaking through to my skin and leaving dark spots. He gripped it in his fists and tore it down the front.
“After everything I’ve been through for you, everything I’ve done? Everything I’ve lost!” he roared in my face. “I’ll fucking show you, show you what you’ve been missing. You need a man who knows what he’s doing. You need a man who knows how to take what he wants. You need me to guide you like I used to, isn’t that right, Lucinda?”
He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and flicked it open. I stilled, going completely motionless as he slid the flat side of it down between my breasts, then under the lace of my bra.
“No,” I cried out the word, but it came out unrecognizable.
He didn’t seem to hear me and with a flick of his wrist, sliced through, freeing my breasts to his wild stare.
I sucked in a sharp painful breath. “God, no, please . . .”
He bent his head and put his mouth on me.
A sob burst past my lips. I was helpless, and so fucking angry, angry that this was happening to me again, that I was powerless to do anything to stop it. The voice in my head screamed, and I opened my mouth, the same anguished sound tearing from my throat. I let it go, with everything that I had. So loud that it took the noise of shattering glass a moment later to penetrate.
Pierce stilled on top of me, and I opened my eyes. His head twisted to the boarded window a second before it was kicked in. It had been covered by scrap, odd pieces of wood and cardboard, all different sizes and shapes, and it collapsed completely.
Hunter jumped through a second later, gun in hand, aimed at Pierce. I noted absently that the sun was coming up. I’d been here all night. Pierce was still on top of me, hadn’t moved at all, except to press something hard against my temple. Every muscle in Hunter’s body went rigid, the veins along his bare forearms bulging.
“Drop the gun or I blow her brains all over the wall,” Pierce said in an eerily calm voice.
Hunter didn’t look at me, kept his entire focus was on Pierce. “If you pull that trigger, I’ll kill you.”
Pierce chuckled like the lunatic he was. “Put the gun down and kick it toward me.”
Hunter’s face was expressionless, but I saw how the muscle in his cheek jumped, his only outward sign of emotion. He slowly pointed the end of the gun down, then lowered it to the floor and slid it toward us with his boot. “You hurt her, you won’t get out of here alive. That’s a promise.”
Hunter’s voice was quiet, terrifyingly so. It wasn’t a threat; it was a fact. But Pierce was too far gone to realize it.
“You’re just in time to watch, King.” His hand moved down my belly and he tugged at the button of my jeans. “You like to watch, don’t you?” The mocking laughter in his unhinged voice died, turned cold, terrifying. “Don’t you?”
“Take your hands off her. Last warning,” Hunter growled.
Pierce’s answer was to slide down my zipper and shove his hand down the front of my underwear.
I whimpered and Hunter’s eyes shifted to mine, and God, the expression on his face slayed me. “Look at me, baby,” he rasped. “Keep your eyes on me.”
I did. I locked eyes with Hunter and didn’t look away, desperately trying to keep that contact, even as my eyes grew blurry, even as hot tears slid down my temples and into my hair. I didn’t know what would happen next, but he was the only thing stopping me from shattering apart, breaking into a million tiny pieces. Pierce roared, screamed at me to look at him and not Hunter, so loud it hurt my ears. The gun he’d been holding against my temple, moved way, pressing it into the mattress beside my head, so he could lean in close, still screaming at me.
Hunter moved so fast, I barely followed with my eyes. He pulled another gun from his back, aimed, and fired.
Pierce jerked back, making the bed rock, his outraged screams cutting off abruptly. Hunter strode toward me. Pierce wasn’t moving, his body heavy on mine. Then Hunter was there, shoving Pierce away. He pulled a knife from his pocket and sawed through the ropes around my wrists, freeing me, then lifted me into his arms.
He pressed his mouth to the top of my head. “I’ve got you,” he said against my hair.
I glanced back at Pierce, afraid he’d spring back up, gun in hand. But that wasn’t going to happen. There was a perfect hole through the center of his forehead. I shivered.