Page 170 of Corrupt Me

He stalks over to me, but I throw an uppercut to his jaw. He stumbles back before hitting the ground—the sound is deeply gratifying, but he recovers quickly.

Crawling up, he watches me with pupils shifting from left to right, looking like a mad person. “I guess I have to teach you some manners.”

“Bring it on,” I challenge, pumped up to take this asshole down.

Lifting my arms in front of me and shifting from one foot to the other, I get some good punches and kicks in, but the cockroach always stands back up. In a moment of distraction, he catches me in a chokehold. I can’t allow myself to panic. Hunter didn’t spend hours training me just for me to black out. Remembering what he taught me for situations like this, I propel my elbow into Eric’s stomach and twist his arm back before slamming my knee into his balls.

Eric wails, holding his surely tiny penis.

“How is that possible?” he sputters.

“Hunter taught me.” I smirk. “And by the way, nothing you did kept us apart. Every night he was in my bed, fucking your fiancée.”

“You whore!”

“I prefer slut. That’s what Hunter calls me when he fucks me hard.”

Letting out a disgruntled sound, Eric lunges at me again. My calves hit the bed, and I fall back with him on top of me. His fingers dig into my arms so hard that a hiss escapes my lips.

“If you’re a whore, I’ll treat you like one,” he grunts.

But I won’t make it easy for him. Freeing one arm, I claw at his face, thrashing and hitting every opening I could find. It’s more than survival—I want him to regret ever thinking he could take something from me.

Despite my resistance, he still manages to unbuckle his pants while I squirm beneath him. My energy lowers with so much tossing around.

Then a loudbang cuts through the chaos,and we both whip our heads toward the door.

I blink a few times, struggling to compute whether my imagination has conjured Hunter or if he’s truly here. Taking advantage of Eric’s shock, I hit him one more time in the nose, freeing myself.

Hunter closes the distance between us in three swift steps. He yanks Eric from the bed and shoves him so hard into the wall that I hear a crack. The sound of bones snapping is unmistakable. I hope it’s his thick-headed skull.

“No one puts their hands on my woman and gets to live.” A feral growl thunders out of Hunter’s mouth before he slices Eric’s neck in a precise, elegant move. Rivulets of red coat Eric’s throat as his hands flail, trying to stop the bleeding. Eric slides down the wall, drowning in a pool of his own blood. As I watch the life drain from him, I feel a fleeting regret for his youth but nothing more. His choices led him to a premature death.

Hunter rushes to me. Cupping my face, he makes me look at him, taking in every inch of me—my sun brightening my world. Everything else vanishes from my mind.

Undiluted love mixes with pure terror in his gray eyes. “Are you hurt? In places I can’t see? Did he touch you?”

“No, to all of that.”

He expels a long sigh of relief as if he had been holding his breath, trapped, waiting for my answer.

“How did you find me so quickly?”

He inhales deeply before locking eyes with me. “I chipped you. I’m not sorry, Bailey, so please don’t be angry with me. I am crazy about you and turning even crazier at the thought of something happening to you.”

Fully understanding his reasoning, the corners of my mouth arch into a teasing smile. “I’m sure it was on one of the multiple occasions when you fucked me into a near coma.”

He grins, pride etched in his eyes. “Nope, before we got together. I’ve loved you for far longer than I wanted to admit. Needed to protect you and keep you safe by any means, knowing I could not bear losing you. Not you. Never you.”

A million suns collide in my heart, illuminating every nook and cranny of my chest. We were never unrequited; we were just happening in our own way.

“And when would you have told me?” I ask out of curiosity, not even a little mad at him. Besides, without it, I would have probably ended up raped or dead by the time the Family found me.

“I planned a vacation once this was over and I would have had you chip me right there and then in exchange.”

I believe him wholeheartedly. “Thank you for saving me.”

He pulls me flush to his chest. “You were doing a fantastic job on your own.”

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