Stripped (Stripped #1)(38)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

I can’t help staring at him as he hovers over me. His jaw is brushed with dark stubble, making him look a little older and a little harder. I notice that he has dots of crimson crusted on his forehead and cheekbones, and on his shirt. I reach up without thinking and scrape at the blood on his cheek with my thumbnail.

Dawson jerks away, scrubbing at his face and staring at his hand, at the flakes of dried blood. “Shit. I’ve got his blood on me.”

“Is he—”

Dawson interrupts me. “He’s none of your concern.” He moves into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of peroxide, a wad of paper towel, and a bag of ice. He examines my head with something resembling professional tenderness, dabbing at the cut with a peroxide-dampened paper towel. I wince at the sting, but it only lasts a moment.

“What’s Greg going to do with him?”

Dawson shrugs. “That’s not a question I want to know the answer to. I hired Greg because he scares the f**k out of me. He used to be president of a biker gang that made the Hell’s Angels look like a bunch of tea-sipping pussies. Except Greg also has a degree in business from Brown. So yeah, don’t piss him off.”

I have to ask. “Do you think he’s dead? The guy who tried to—who attacked me?”

“Do you care?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just—”

“Listen, babe. He tried to rape you. He would have killed you. He nearly did, and you’ve got the bruises on your throat to prove it. Don’t think about that piece of shit anymore, okay? He’s gone, and he won’t hurt you or anyone else ever again. That’s all that matters. His blood is on me, and Greg. Not you.”

“But you can’t just—”

“Grey.” Dawson moves to sit next to me, and I want to curl into him. Let him hold me. I stay still and try to keep my turbulent feelings in check. “Stop worrying about that f**king pile of scum. Okay? Please? He doesn’t deserve your pity. If he’s dead, it’s too good for him. He deserves to suffer.” The vehemence in his voice and in his eyes makes me shiver.

I look away and focus on breathing, in and out. Dawson is a huge, hot, confusing presence beside me, and I’m filled with sensory memories of his arms around me and his lips on me…and then the memory shifts abruptly, and I feel again a hand clamping over my mouth and hear the hiss of his voice, and I gag.

Dawson pulls me into his lap as I start to shake and sob, his arms curling around me. I tense initially, sure that the feeling of male arms holding me will trigger the horror again, but it doesn’t. I feel safe with Dawson. He protected me.

“It’s okay, Grey. You’re safe.” His mouth is beside my ear, whispering.

Then, something odd happens: Dawson presses a soft kiss to my temple. It’s…tender. It’s a kiss designed to soothe, to comfort. Not to ignite desire or passion. It confuses me, and it makes me feel…loved. Cared for.

And that is something I can’t handle.

My instinct is to flee, but I can’t move. I simply cannot make myself leave the protective cocoon of Dawson’s embrace, and I don’t want to. My confusion and fear aren’t strong enough to push me out of his arms. It’s a bad dream, a nightmare, and it’s fading quickly.

I stop crying after a while, and I let myself be safe in Dawson’s arms. His mouth brushes my temple again, and then the curve of my ear. He settles a blanket around me, and his hands skate up and down my arms and across my back and shoulders, keeping me soothed and warm.

I yawn, and Dawson shifts beneath me, cradles his arms under my knees and around my shoulders, stands up with me. I’m sleepy, emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. Dawson’s shirt is soft cotton and smells of him. He’s warm, and his muscles shift under my hands as I cling to him, like stones beneath silk. I let my head settle against his chest and absorb the feeling of comfort, of being cared for. It’s so unfamiliar. Ever since Mama died, I’ve felt alone. Unloved, unnoticed.

He carries me up the stairs, down a long hallway and up three more stairs, through a pair of open French doors and into a cavernous master bedroom. The bed is the only furniture besides a huge flat-screen TV on the wall opposite and a pair of nightstands on either side of the bed. He carries me to the bed, leans against it, and sets me down.

My heart stops, and my breath catches in my throat. I’m tense all over.

And now here’s Dawson, this god, this iconic movie star, this all-too-real man, and he’s paying attention to me. As if I mean something to him. As if he wants something from me that I don’t know how to give. I don’t even know what he wants, honestly.

Well, that’s not true. I do. He wants sex. I know this. I see it and sense it. It’s in the way he touches me, in the way he kisses me. I know it, because that’s what men want from me. It’s what he wants from me. And I don’t know how to give it. But I get the feeling he also might want something else from me. Something more. But that’s not his style. Nothing I’ve ever heard about him has said he wants anything from a woman he’s involved with but sex.

All this runs through my head as he grabs at the pile of throw pillows neatly arranged on the bed and tosses them to the floor two at a time. Then he reaches under the pillows and tugs the blanket down until it’s stopped by my body. “Slide under,” he says.

I tuck my legs beneath the blanket and lie back into the pillows, watching Dawson like a hawk. Is this where it happens? Now? In his room? My heart is pounding, but I’m still barely breathing. My fingers clutch at the edge of the blanket. Dawson moves across the room toward a pair of closed French doors, which he opens to reveal a closet larger than two of the dorm rooms at USC put together. There’s an island in the center with a marble countertop, and an actual sitting area complete with a deep leather chair. Dawson peels his shirt off and tosses it into a nearby hamper, and then his shorts. He’s in nothing but a pair of tight black boxer-briefs. My throat closes, and my fingers curl into fists at the sight of him. He’s…nothing short of glorious. The muscles in his back are clearly defined, rippling as he moves. His shoulders are like slabs of granite, and his arms thick and bulging with muscle. I simply cannot take my eyes off him as he opens a drawer, pulls out a pair of gym shorts, and turns toward me as he shoves one foot through and then the other. He tugs the shorts up, but not before I catch a glimpse of the front of him. Of the bulge in his underwear. My eyes are drawn there, almost instinctively.