Free Suspicions (The Battling McGuire Boys Book 3) by Cynthia Eden Page A

friends and lovers. She was ready to race across that line. Full speed ahead!
    “There won’t be any going back.” His words were a warning, and his expression had darkened. “I don’t think I can have you once, then watch you walk away.”
    She wasn’t going anyplace.
    “I’ve seen a man’s obsession for a woman wreck his world.”
    He had to be talking about Gregory Montgomery.
    “I already think I’m half-obsessed with you. You should...be very careful with me.” He opened the door.
    She caught his hand. “You’re nothing like him.”
    “I don’t have his blood, but I lived in his house for years. There were things that happened there, things I don’t talk about much.”
    “He hurt you.” And that knowledge enraged her.
    Mark stared down at her.
    “I touched the scars on your back.”
    His shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “When he didn’t like the way I worked the ranch, he’d use his belt.”
    Ava flinched.
    “I was thirteen the first time he came after me. And I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing at the ranch. I learned, fast, not ever to make the same mistake twice.”
    “Mark...” She started to wrap her arms around him, but he stiffened.
    “I don’t want your pity, Ava.”
    And wasn’t that why she responded so deeply to him? Because he didn’t look at her with pity in his beautiful gaze? “I don’t pity you,” she said clearly. “I just want to hurt Gregory.” In that instance, she figured it was a shame the dead couldn’t be hurt.
    “He never touched my mother. Never let the ranch hands see what he did. I was dependent on him. He’d adopted me, taken us both in. I knew that if we left him, my mother and I would have nothing. Everything,
everything
was his.”
    Her hands fisted. “You should have told us. My brothers—”
    “Like Davis said, he figured out what was happening. It was right before my mom died. When she passed, I didn’t care anymore. I left. Rode out fast and hot, and I
wanted
that bastard to die, too.”
    But Gregory hadn’t died, not then. He’d lived for years—and then Mark had come home.
    And my parents died just a few days later.
    “You are not like him,” she said, the words tight.
He was a monster.
Mark wasn’t. He was good and strong and—
    “Everyone has darkness inside. We can all be pushed too far.” His breath heaved out slowly. “Remember that, when you’re making your choice. Because I’ve got more darkness in me than you probably can even guess.”
    Davis...he’d said something before about Mark and—
    “I want you too much. Maybe you should play it safe and tell me to stay away.”
    She shook her head. Why couldn’t he see she wanted him the same way? “I’m not afraid of you.” Not of any part of him. Good, bad, darkness, light—whatever, it didn’t matter.
    “Maybe you should be.” He inclined his head. “Lock the door, Ava.”
    Then he was striding away and heading back to his SUV.
    She shut the door.
    Locked it.
    A few moments later, she heard his vehicle crank. Mark drove away.
    Maybe you should be.
    * * *
    T HE GATES OF the McGuire ranch shut behind him. Mark paused a moment, his vehicle idling. He was trying to do the right thing with Ava, but every time he got close to her, he just—wanted.
    Wanted her naked.
    Wanted to see her flush with pleasure.
    And—
    Her voice, soft and husky, echoed through his mind.
My last boyfriend...that was Alan Channing.
    And that guy was a serious grade-A jerk.
    His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
    Keep moving. Drive away. Now.
    He shifted gears and drove down that dark road. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Ava that he worried he was already half-obsessed with her. He thought about her too much. Wanted to protect her at all times. Wanted to destroy anyone who threatened her—
    I should let her go. She deserves more.
    Because he’d lied to Ava before. Lied to the McGuires. Lied to the police. There were things he’d done that would always