Page 52 of Cold Foot King

“What…” she cleared her throat and said, “Never mind.”

“No, what were you going to ask?”

Katrina hesitated, then looked up at him. “What did you like? You know, when you were with me before?”

“Mmmm,” he rumbled. “We’re going to open that wound tonight, huh?”

“Want me to go first?”

“Sure.”

“I liked how you tried to resist me.”

“That’s not what I expected you to say.”

“Well, I’m not done. I liked that part, and I liked how you kept inching closer and closer—”

“Well, you took your clothes off and got on your hands and knees with your ass pointed toward me, and you were begging.”

“That was the drugs. I also liked how you made sure I came.”

“It was the least I could do,” he gritted out. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I think it’s healthy to talk about something traumatizing, so we can both cope and heal and move forward.”

“I see they were playing the therapy shows up on your floor as well.”

“Every day. I learned so much!”

His deep chuckle vibrated right through her, and she relaxed even more against him.

There were a few seconds of silence before he spoke again. “I liked the noises you made. The needy ones. Like you needed my dick, or you would die.”

She traced the hollow of his throat with her fingertip while she thought about that. “I felt like I would. I liked how when they sprayed that gas in the room, you tried to help me cover my face. You didn’t even know my name, but you didn’t want whatever was happening, and you were trying to protect me. I thought about that part a lot after they took me back up to my cell to detox.”

“Was it bad?”

“Horrible. I felt like I was clawing out of my own skin, and my animal was writhing inside of me in fury.”

“Same.”

“I had Raynah there, who understood, and she talked me through it.”

“I had a guard telling me he was lining up my next breed, and that I should just get used to it. Said if I would stop fighting it, they wouldn’t have to drug me. I wanted to kill them.”

“Geez,” she whispered, horrified. It must’ve been awful for him. She couldn’t even imagine coming down off that experience alone, or while she was that confused.

What if she had met him a year from now? Would he be crazy, like the Jackal? Would he be oversexed and overstimulated, and would he have lost himself completely? Would he be a shell of himself? Unrecognizable?

She suddenly felt grateful for the timing of everything. They’d both gotten out of there after one pairing, and though she’d hated it because it hadn’t been something they chose for themselves, she also was thankful it had been the one time, and just them. And she was thankful for this moment, when they could talk about it and deal with what happened, and it didn’t just sit inside of them like some infection they couldn’t reach or heal.

“I forgive you, if you forgive me,” she said softly.

“No need. I never blamed you. If it had taken, I would’ve figured out a way to get you and the baby out of there.”

Those words settled something in her heart. King was good. He was a good man, truly.

She leaned up and kissed him, and his lips went all soft against hers. She loved the taste of him, and reveled in the feeling of his strong body against hers.