SEVEN
Sienna
I woke the next morning to a sculpted forearm draped across my chest. My very bare chest.
Oh my God.
I was naked.
At River’s apartment.
And he was still here.
“Shit!” I leaped out of bed, scrambling to pick up the clothing River had ripped off of me last night.
“What’s wrong?” River stood, naked as sin and the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
My eyes landed on the thick ridge of his cock, hard and ready, pointing straight at me.
“I have to get home. But I really kind of want to stay.”
His arms surrounded me then, curling around my waist and sandwiching me against him.
“Mmm, bacon and eggs for breakfast?”
“No.” I shook my head, steeling my resolve. “Hopefully, I can get home before Dad wakes up. If he doesn’t see me at breakfast, he’ll know something's up.”
“Okay, I’ll bring you back to your car.”
“I’m sorry to rush out. I had a great time. It’s just, I’ve been getting away with this job because I can sneak out after he leaves for work. If he doesn’t see me in the morning…”
“It’s cool. I get it, Sienna. But can I just ask?”
“Huh?” I hurried to put on my jeans and shirt.
“Why doesn’t he want you to work?”
“He just… He’s so controlling. He thinks he knows what’s best for me. He was always really overprotective when I was younger. But then the accident happened, and it just changed him. It changed all of us.”
He frowned but nodded. He swiped a thumb across my cheek before pecking me on the lips. “I understand.”
He pulled on his jeans, sliding a clean white T-shirt over his broad, golden shoulders. So simple yet so sexy on him, licks of ink peeking out of his sleeves, his hair tousled and messy. My fingers itched to run through it, to meld myself with him for the rest of the day.
“Ready?” he asked, sending me a charming half grin.
“As I’ll ever be,” I huffed, wishing I could stay right here, snuggled in his bed, and avoid my real life.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Well, I’m doing what I can. Hopefully, I can save enough to move out this summer.”
“Don’t get your own place. Stay with me. This apartment is too big to be alone. Move in with me.”
I studied his eyes watching me, pleading with me to believe him. Somehow, I did. I’d never trusted a man in my life, my dad’s temper stomping all over my feelings one too many times, but I believed River—with every fiber of my being.
* * *
“Sienna!” Anger laced my dad’s voice as soon as I opened the door to my house.
“Shit,” I groaned as I walked into the foyer. “Here, Dad!”
I heard his steps taking the stairs two at a time. “Where the fuck have you been all night? Slutting around with those friends of yours? Are you drunk?”
“Dad! No!” I pushed a hand through my hair. I didn’t know how to talk my way out of this one. “I just stayed at a friend's house last night and watched movies. I fell asleep on her couch. It won’t happen again.”
His eagle eyes searched up and down my body, taking in the rumpled clothes I’d worn yesterday.
“What’s that?” He snatched my wrist and yanked my hand to him.
The hand with the tattoo.
“Permanent marker.” I shrank from his hard gaze. Just one look and this man could turn my stomach into knots. I’d grown up with that feeling taking up permanent residence in my belly, and I was so sick and tired of it.
“Bullshit.” He pulled my finger closer, inspecting. “Another tattoo, Sienna? Another fucking tattoo?”
His hand tightened around my wrist. “Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
“I should have hurt you a helluva lot more when you were a kid. More spanking would have been good for you. Your mother was too soft, and look at her now, fucking useless.” He let go, waving his hand up the stairs to where my mother undoubtedly slept, numb on pills and life.
“Told you last time, girl. Come home with any more ink on your body, and you won’t have a roof to sleep under.”
Anger burned on my cheeks, rage chugging through my veins. “I’m fucking legal, Dad! I don’t have to take this shit from you anymore.”
I spun to run up the stairs, but he caught me, fingers tightening until the pinch made me squeal with pain. “Stop it!”
“Just like your fucking mother,” he snarled, yanking me back down the stairs and making me trip, my head crashing on the edge of the last step and causing pain to bloom instantly in my head.
My vision darkened before everything went utterly silent.
I woke I’m not sure how much longer to George Michael begging me to have faith in my ear.
My phone.
“God,” I moaned, hand to head, the throbbing pain even worse. “Hello?”
“Sienna! Where are you? Are you okay?”
River. My River. My savior.
“I don’t know. My dad… God, my head…”
“What? Are you at home? 57 Payne Street, right?”
“Yes.” I dropped the phone back to the floor, praying this wasn’t a concussion. Praying I could just get out of this house. Praying the only man I wanted there was on his way.
“Sienna!” Pounding on the front door.
“It’s me! Open the door!”
More pounding.
Was that in my head? I wasn’t sure anymore.
“Sienna!”
“Ugh…” I groaned, the cold wooden floors biting into my ass. “Help.”
“Shit.” I heard more banging and then silence. A minute later, the door was open, and River was sliding to his knees.
“How did you get in?”
“Popped the lock with my credit card. How does your head feel?” His hands were on my face, fingers on my wrist checking my heartbeat.
“I think I need to go to the hospital.”
“Everything looks good, but we have to make sure you don’t have a concussion.” He lifted me in his arms, carrying me straight out the door and placing me in his car.
After a quick drive to the local hospital and tests that took more than three hours, I was diagnosed healthy and very lucky.
I told River to take me home, but apparently, that was out of the question. “Only place I trust you’ll be safe is with me.”
He’d carried me in and out of the car and then up to his apartment before tucking me into his bed.
“You can go into the shop today. I can take care of myself, I’ll just sleep—”
“No way. Not leaving your side. Possibly not ever again. Shouldn’t have sent you home to that asshole.” He pushed a hand through his hair, looking visibly upset. “We should call the police, Sienna.”
“No!” I shook my head. “No, he’s just hurt. I hurt him. It’s what I do—the disappointing daughter. He’ll get over it. It’s fine.”
“Bullshit, it’s fine. He’s an abusive fuck.”
“He is,” I agreed, then shut my eyes, remembering him before. Life before. “It wasn’t like that before the accident, though.”
“What happened that night, Sienna?”
A ball of tears choked my throat. “Car accident. Some drunk passed out in the middle of the road one night, right downtown. Probably stumbled out of the bar and just fell there. But the streetlight was out, and my parents were fighting. They just didn’t see him. It was too late by the time my dad knew something was wrong. He overcorrected at the last minute, hit the guy, and sent us careening into a telephone pole. We escaped with bumps and bruises, but my little sister was so small… She just couldn’t handle the impact, the doctors said.”
“Jesus, Sienna…” He paused, eyes glistening. His hands circled mine, arms pulling me to him and holding me so tightly I thought he might choke the air from my lungs.
“That’s why I got the tattoo. That scar is from that night, the night that changed all of our lives. I wanted to remember it, but I wanted to cover it up with something better.”
He nodded, hands still clutching at my back as he held me. Deep, racking breaths shook his body, his muscles trembling around me.
“River?” I breathed, forcing him away to lock on his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“That man in the street, Sienna. I think that man was my father.”