Page 96 of The Vigilant

When it came right down to it, what I wanted didn’t matter. How fucking bad I wanted her didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was her choice. To obey. To submit. To be cared for. To be mine.

And she couldn’t make that choice without knowing what happened to her father…and the role I’d played.

Chapter Twenty

Sutton

Iwoke up to the smell of coffee, the sizzle of a skillet, and a steady throb between my thighs.

There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever doubt last night had happened. I felt traces of Tynan not only imprinted on the most sensitive parts of my body, but all the way into my very soul.

He knew what I’d done. That I’d killed a man.

I wanted to be unwavering when I told him. I wanted to be both furious and proud as though changing his opinion of me didn’t matter. I had no regrets. In the same position, I’d make the same choice a thousand times over. But even knowing that had never changed the kernel of doubt wedged deep in my chest.

“You’re just like him. Your father,”Mom would sneer when she was in one of those moods where she took her bitterness toward Dad out on me.“All you care about is violence. Picking fights. Causing trouble. You can’t love. You can’t care. I hope no one suffers like I have for caring about someone like you.”

I was a smart kid. I’d had to be. I knew when drugs were involved and emotions ran high. But I was also still a kid, andI couldn’t stop every piece of vitriolic shrapnel from burying under my skin.

Was that who I was? Someone who couldn’t care?I was like my dad, and I couldn’t deny the hurt his heroism caused.Was that why I’d held back from telling Tynan the truth? Because I didn’t want him to suffer for caring about me?

I sat up, and the thought was instantly blown from my mind by the ache in my core. I sucked in a deep breath, my clit feeling like it was lit on fire by everything it came into contact with.

He’d promised this would be my punishment.My reminder.

“There is nothing you could say or do that could make me not want to take care of you.”

Those words had been like a knife through my skin, painful but essential as they dug out that last shard of shrapnel that had me believing anyone who knew what I’d done couldn’t really care about me.A killer.

I rose from the bed and quietly went to the bathroom, finding my clothes from last night folded on the counter. Carefully, I pulled on the leggings and top I’d borrowed from Rob; I’d have to stop at her cabin today and borrow a few more things so I could wash these.

I ran my fingers through my hair and brushed my teeth, heading for the kitchen when the bittersweet sight of the bed gave me pause.

He’d promised over and over to take care of me, but when it was all said and done, when my body felt like it had no bones left to it and my chest was drained of tears he’d seemed to draw from stone, he’d still left, and I didn’t understand why.

And I was angry.

I stopped when I reached the counter. Tynan was at the stove, watching eggs in one pan and flipping bacon in another, with his back to me.

What would it be like to wake up every morning like this? My body still riding the high of his touch while he made breakfast in the kitchen?

“Morning,” I said, unwilling to linger in my thoughts.

Tynan stilled and then slowly turned.

I was angry until the moment I saw him. Angry that he’d promised to take care of me but then hadn’t stayed the night. But one look at the dark circles under his eyes and the weariness on his face confirmed that last night was punishment for him, too.

So why hadn’t he just stayed?

“Morning,” Tynan said, tiredness making his voice husky. “Breakfast will be another minute. You want coffee?”

“I can get it,” I said and rounded the other side of the counter, feeling the moment his eyes fell on me as I reached for a mug. “Do you want a cup, too?”

He grunted and pushed his mug I hadn’t seen toward me. “A refill. Please.”

I poured two big mugs of coffee while he finished up with the eggs, every passing moment making my heart race faster.

I wanted to know what happened now. What this meant for me and him—for us.Why he left.

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