Free Thrive by Rebecca Sherwin

agreement when he dropped his eyes, bowed his head and stared into his empty coffee cup.
    “I’m a monster, Skye,” he confessed, his voice thick with shame and regret. “I should have said no.”
    “To what?”
    My hands began to sweat and panic set in, making my nerves tremble.
    “Charlie…Ms Tattersell.”
    My nostrils flared with the instinct to protect. “What did she make you do?”
    “Nothing. I did…I do it willingly. She owns me and I let her.”
    I took a deep breath, careful with my reaction, and reached out to hold his hand across the table.
    “Can you get out? Do you want out?”
    “I’ve wanted to get out since it started…but I can't.”
    “You can.”
    “No.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I can't get out.” He lifted his head and finally his dark eyes met mine. “I’m a criminal. Nothing I’ve ever done warrants you wasting your time being here with me. I’m putting you in danger.”
    I slipped my hand away as if I’d been burned. My skin seared to the touch.
    “What have you done?”
    My bottom lip began to tremble and my heart began to pound. I couldn’t control the reaction; the panic set in and a sheet of cold sweat crawled over my skin.
    “You’re afraid of me,” he said. I nodded, unable and unwilling to lie. “You should be. But I’ll protect you, Skye. I’ll protect you with everything I have.”
    “What is this we’re doing?” I asked the only question I could think of.
    He belonged – the idea brought a fiery heat of rage to the tips of my fingers, sending them curling into tight fists – to another woman, yet here he was with me. Just like my father, his uncle, did.
    A growl rumbled low in his chest. He knew what I was thinking and he was ready to pounce, to eradicate the thought. “We’ve never been apart – not really. You’re mine , Skillet.”
    It was the answer I wanted and it filled me with a sick sense of triumph. I slid out of the booth and joined Curtis on his side of the table. Turning to him, I took his face in my hands.
    “And you’re mine .” I leaned closer and whispered, “We’re going to get you away from her.”
     
    ***
    Curtis said I was afraid of him, and I was. I was afraid of what the future held for us, I was afraid of his past, the secrets he’d revealed and those he hadn’t; I was afraid of his fear and the actions it would lead him to take. He was brave, stronger than he let himself believe; he used his aggression and dominant nature to control himself. The one place he couldn’t hide his true, unguarded self? Sleep.
    Something woke me in the night; arms encircled me and clamped tight around my body. Curtis’ back arched and strangled cries began in his chest, vibrated against my neck and erupted from his mouth in a bloodcurdling cry for help. I let him hold me while the dream played out. I knew better than to wake someone up when they were in the throes of a nightmare, and struggling against him would have tightened his grip. I knew he was wound up. I knew he could hurt me, and I didn’t want him to blame himself if he lost control when he was unconscious. So I laid still; I let him hold me as tight as he needed, and my heart broke for the man lying in the bed with me, begging for someone to save him.
     
    Curtis stirred in his sleep, rolling over and extending one arm out onto the mattress to reach for me. I was already up, showered and with two cups of coffee sitting on the bookcase next to me while I waited for him to wake up. He wanted control – I got that. I understood why. He was a typical alpha-male, and then some. Add his naturally possessive and dominant nature to the death of his parents, his guilt over Oliver’s death, finding out the man who raised him was my father, and the woman who raised him as her own was stuck in the middle, oblivious to what was happening, and whatever he meant yesterday when he said he was a criminal, I could understand why he was the way he was. I still hadn’t