Broken, but not beaten.
I think that hurt worse. Because even in the battered, unstable state he was in, I still saw him fight. He fought for balance; he struggled to stand. Even as he bled and hurt, he refused to lie down and give in.
Fuck Con.
Fuck the guys at Omega.
I might be a grown-ass man. I might not even go to that college. But I would never be too grown to protect my person. I would never be too mature to extract revenge. There were some things a man just couldn’t lie down and take.
This was one of those things.
I was so angry I couldn’t really think. I was too consumed with the man beside me to really formulate a plan.
But I would. And just like on the track, I wouldn’t back down.
I wasn’t sure how long we’d been sitting here, but it was long enough that the fingers on my hand holding the ice had gone numb from the cold. Slowly, I lifted the towel and lowered it off his skin.
“How’s it feeling?” I asked soft, studying the still swollen and angry-looking black-and-blue eye.
“Better,” he replied, glancing over.
His hair dropped over his forehead like it too was exhausted. Some of the strands fell across the bandaged gash. I reached out and pushed them back.
Trent’s eyes closed with the touch, and my stomach dipped a little.
Even though I didn’t need to, I repeated the action, pushing back his hair a little farther.
He sighed.
Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from his and snagged a bottle of water off the nightstand, uncapped it, and held it to his lips. He reached for the bottle, but I pushed his hand back and titled the plastic until cool water touched his lip.
Trent’s hazel eyes fixed on mine as he drank, slow, cautious sips. When a drop of water escaped and trailed over the rounded softness of his lower lip and down across his chin, I used it as an invitation to lean over and swipe it away.
“My blood is on your shirt,” Trent rasped, pulling back from the drink.
“I know.”
“Kiss me.” The request seemed to rip right out of him. You know that place I mentioned he never let anyone see?
With deliberate care, I capped the water and slowly set it aside. When I turned back, he was watching me, hunger and nervousness in his gaze.
It was a painful thing to want someone so much but to constantly deny yourself. It was even more so to let yourself believe the person you wanted so badly returned the desire.
I leaned forward, bracing my arm on the mattress on the other side of his waist, caging him in without touching him.
The back of his head hit the headboard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. The tip of my tongue wet my lips so they would slide right over his.
They did.
Oh, they did.
Trent held himself still; he didn’t kiss me back. If I didn’t know him, I might have taken that the wrong way, but I did know him.
I took his stillness right to my heart. It pierced like a clear piece of glass slicing right into that tender spot on the bottom of your foot.
He was taking something in that moment. Something just for him. Something he really wanted.
I was flattered. I was overwhelmed.
It was the first thing I’d ever seen him take.
Yeah, maybe it was just a kiss. But it wasn’t. It was so so much more.
I poured everything into that kiss. Everything into my lips as I rubbed them softly over his. The one side was puffy, and I took a little care there, licking over it with my tongue, making sure it was good and slick so he didn’t feel any kind of pain.
Between kisses, I would lift my head just a fraction of an inch and tilt my head a different way. The change in direction enhanced the kiss; it made certain I touched every last centimeter of his mouth.
He reveled in it. His body, which he’d held with stiffness and pain up until now, went boneless against the mattress. Small sounds I don’t think he even heard vibrated the deep part of his throat.
I sensed rather than saw his hands fist into the sheets at his sides with restraint, as if it took everything in him just to take and not give back.
But, oh, he was giving. He was giving me so much by just reacting. If I hadn’t already fallen in love with him, I would have right at that moment.
In fact, I think I fell a little harder.
It was a heady thing to be so incredibly wanted. To be the balm to a wounded soul, the answer to someone’s prayer.
“Forrester.” My name ripped from his lips when I sat back and shook out my trembling arms.
“Frat boy,” I answered, and a second of panic almost ruined the moment pressing in around us. I wasn’t supposed to call him that anymore.
Sure, he said he didn’t like it, but we both knew that was a lie. He loved it when I called him that. It was a term of endearment, something only I ever got away with. But now, to him, it was a slur. A connection to the men who jumped him.
I felt my eyes widen. His own cleared; a little of the passion glazing over his body cleared.