Page 13 of Guarding The Phoenix: Vol. 1

It was the first nightmare I’d had since I received the last missive from Luka Santos in the mail. It was the stress of the situation. And sometimes, even though Carlos was dead and buried, I felt as trapped now as I had during my marriage. Reliving it was almost as bad as experiencing it the first time. Except now I knew what I had looked like after that particular beating.

I had been laid up for two weeks. Carlos had confined me to the bedroom and hadn’t allowed me to go anywhere or see anyone. He delivered all my meals personally. I had been forced to sleep with him.

I’d basically lain there while he rutted on top of me and thought of other things. I looked up the term. It’s called disassociation. And it’s the only reason I survived these past four years.

Tears fell fast and furious down my cheeks beneath Axel’s worried gaze. I hated showing weakness of any kind. But I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to, not after revisiting my personal hell and the abuse I suffered at Carlos’s hands. They slipped down my cheeks one after another.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

I jolted when I was lifted into his big, strong arms the size of tree trunks. What the—Axel was holding me?

Chapter nine

Bleeding Heart

Axel

WhatthefuckwasI doing?

I held Kylie’s trembling body in my arms. She buried her face against my chest and cried, her tears soaking my shirt. Her sobs sounded as if they were wrenched from deep within her soul, and I ached for the pain she had been through.

But I had no fucking clue what to do with a crying woman. I wasn’t considered gentle by society’s standards—with good reason. I never felt as out of place as I did in this moment. I worried I would fumble and say something wrong. Especially when my body was getting its wires crossed. I hadn’t held a woman in ages. And part of me ached to sink into her soft curves.

Shit.

I should get Mateo or Chase to help her. They were far better with women than me, at least when it came to being kind and considerate. As much as I knew I should, I couldn’t make myself move from my perch on the side of her bed or release the weeping woman and leave her to fend for herself.

“Want to tell me about it?” Anything to distract me from the fact that her soft curves were cuddled against me and felt like heaven. The sweet curve of her ass pressed against my crotch. And my dick was already at half-mast. I sniffed her hair, and her scent, a subtle amber, surrounded me.

God, she was gorgeous and soft, and I couldn’t help but imagine laying her down and loving her properly. I hadn’t been with a woman since Melanie opted out of our relationship. That was two years ago now. Which was why my body was acting like a randy teenager with his first woman.

I had to get a fucking grip. Kylie hadn’t flirted with me or given me any indication of interest.

“It’s a memory,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper as she hiccupped through her tears.

“I figured. Of what?” I stroked a careful hand down her slender back. She was so small and delicate. And I felt like the beast in the tower. Regardless of whether I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes upon, the beast never ended up with the princess. Not without changing back into a man. And that’s something I would never be. I’d seen and done far too much. There were black marks on my soul from the lives I had ended. It didn’t matter that those murders were sanctioned and in service to my country, I would always bear the scars on my soul. No good woman would ever want someone as corrupt as me.

“When I tried to leave him, it didn’t go well.” She hugged me tighter, like she wanted to burrow into me.

“There was no one who could help you?”

She shook her head no. The unbound brunette waves of her hair shifted against my hand. And I couldn’t help but catch a small strand and feel the silken glory between my fingers. It felt like hand-spun silk. Reminding me once again that Kylie was fragile and delicate. I was here to protect her, not fuck her.

But the way she clung to me had me fighting against a tsunami of rising desire. The beast inside me rattled its cage, scenting a female. I wanted to lay her down and taste her cunt, driving her to orgasm after orgasm until she screamed my name. And only then, with bliss riding her features, would I gift her with my cock and fuck her until she clawed at me as she came.

It had been a long time since I’d been with a woman. And never one this gorgeous nor as elegant. A guy like me, I would break a little thing like Kylie just by my sheer size alone. As much as I might wish it were otherwise, she wasn’t for me.

But a man could dream. And make plans to jack off the moment I was alone.

“No. I’m an orphan. Nobody wanted me. He knew that and used it.”

I fought to keep my hands from tightening and my face impassive. That sick bastard. To have a gorgeous woman like Kylie with her beguiling blue eyes and knockout body, only to abuse her badly enough that she had nightmares about her time with him months after his death. I’d kill the asshole if he wasn’t already dead.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, wishing I could have been there to protect her. Vowing I would ensure she was safe. If it meant I had to kill Luka Santos with my bare hands and add to the tally of dark marks on my soul, I would do it.

I stroked a hand down her hair and back. Fuck, this woman. I breathed her in. That amber scent made her smell like sunshine to me. And I would love nothing more than to lay her down and make her forget all her demons.

I knew what it was like when your past wouldn’t release you and kept you in a chokehold.

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