Free Coming Undone by Avril Ashton Page B

looking at me?”
    She scowled. “I am looking at you.” She fixed her attention to his forehead.
    “My eye, McKenna,” he said sternly. “Look me in the eye.”
    Her chin trembled. “I can’t,” she whispered.
    He moved from the chair and went over to her to kneel beside the bed. She held herself still. “Why can’t you look at me?”
    Her lashes fluttered close. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to see it.”
    Ren traced a finger over the hand she used to hold the sheet over her nudity. “See what? Talk to me, McKenna.”
    “Regret,” she mumbled. “ Disgust. Shame.” She trembled under his touch. “I don’t want to see the look on your face that says last night was a mistake. That it shouldn’t have happened.”
    Ren smiled, but of course since she wasn’t looking at him, she didn’t get to see it. “I kept myself awake half the night with your taste on my tongue,” he said. “Echoes of the sounds you made, of you calling my name rang in my ears last night.” He grasped her chin. “Look at me, McKenna.”
    She flinched at the command and took her own sweet time, but she did finally. Her lashes lifted and her brown eyes focused on him, nailing him in place.
    “I don’t regret last night. Not the way I gave you pleasure, not the way you took it.” Her lips parted and he touched the bottom one with his thumb. “I regret only how everything began for you last night.”
    She stiffened but held his gaze. “I knew you’d see it, the way he treated me, you’d see how I perform for him. At his command.”
    Ren shook his head at the shame in her tone. “You can’t do that. You can’t make him make you feel that way.” He brought his face close to hers and stared into her wide eyes. “You didn’t have a choice. You didn’t volunteer to be his puppet. He forced you into this and I can’t—I won’t—look at you as any less for doing what you have to in order to make sure you mother is taken care of and secure.”
    “I thought of you,” she whispered brokenly. “On my knees, I thought of you and I wished—I wished I could be with you that way. That I could be worthy of being someone you’d touch.” She licked her lips. “Someone you’d make love to.”
    “Don’t say that,” Ren snarled. “Don’t even think it. You’re beautiful and vibrant. So fucking courageous.” His body shook with rage at Salim for breaking McKenna down like she was then. “I’m not a nice person, McKenna. Don’t let the kind words fool you. Don’t mistake me for someone you can aspire to see a future with. I’m not the kind you need in your life.”
    “Yet here you are.” She met his gaze, unflinching. “In my life when I need you most.”
    “I’m here now.” He pressed his forehead to hers, brushed his lips over her nose. “When I find what I’m looking for, I’ll be gone. Know this. Please.” He didn’t stick around, not since he’d snuck out at nineteen. He didn’t put down roots, so there was less chance of having them uprooted.
    McKenna nodded at his words, and Ren moved away after taking one last whiff of her natural scent. He got to his feet and held out a hand. “Let me feed you.”

Chapter Seven
     
    Breakfast was a silent affair, finished quickly before Ren ran off using the excuse he had to check on some leads with his brother. McKenna nodded at him, her eyes tracking his departure while her gut clenched.
    He didn’t sound like he was lying, but she couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help thinking back to the night before, the tape, and what he must think of her. She knew what she thought of her. Nothing good, nothing complimentary. The time had come though, with or without Ren’s help, to do something. To act. To stop sitting idly by, scared of making waves in the shallow pond she was drowning in.
    Long after her backdoor closed behind Ren, McKenna sat on her couch, staring off into space. She searched her brain for any way out, nothing she hadn’t done over a hundred times