Read Online Always Loving You by Sydney Landon - Free Book Online Page B

winced as she tried to move off the couch. Agony raced through her body as she leaned down to pick up her discarded shirt. She needed to get out of here . . . now. She was balancing unsteadily on her feet when Mac walked back in carrying a bottle and a glass of water. He looked surprised to see her standing there, with her shirt gripped tightly in one hand. “Mac . . . I’m just going to . . . I mean, I need to get back to my car.”
    He shook a couple of tablets from the bottle that he was carrying out before setting it down. He handed them to her along with the glass, waiting until she had taken them before commenting on her sudden need to leave. “Avie . . . sit down, please. I need to patch you up before I take you back.”
    She stood there uncertainly before asking, “Could we use a kitchen chair? I, um . . . just don’t want to sit back down on the couch.” No doubt, he thought she was cracking up, but after a moment’s hesitation, he walked toward his kitchen and returned seconds later with a wooden chair. She was so glad that he hadn’t questioned her aversion to his leather couch. What could she possibly say? “Oh, sorry. I’m afraid that you had sex with your girlfriend on it and the thought ofsitting there makes me want to puke”? Nothing strange about that statement at all. Especially when she had handed him to Gwen on a shiny platter with a damn red bow attached to it.
    Mac picked up his first aid kit and started cleaning her abrasions with an antiseptic wipe that stung bad enough to bring tears to her eyes. Having his hands gently touching almost every exposed inch of her skin was torture for a different reason. She only hoped that he thought the few times that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from flinching was from the pain and not the foreign feeling of his warm hands touching her body. She both feared and craved his touch. How many nights had she lain awake wishing he were there, lying next to her? Wishing she were a normal person who could wake up in the arms of the man she loved—without remembering another man’s hands on her body, holding her immobile and stripping away her innocence? The one thing she had wanted to give Mac from the moment she had started to see him as something more than her brother’s friend. It was always supposed to be him and only him, and that had been brutally stolen from them both. They could never get that back, but if she continued on the path of avoidance that she had taken for so many years, then the bastard who had raped her was still ruining her life, and she didn’t want that. She wanted to be free. She wanted to know what it felt like to be touched by someone who cared about her. It had to be Mac, as it was always meant to be.
    “Avie . . . what’s going on with you? First, you goroaring off on the back of Dom’s bike, and next you’re flying down the streets of Garden City wrapping yourself around a car. This isn’t you; this isn’t the woman I know. I mean . . . is there something I need to know about you and Dom?”
    Ava held her breath, wondering if Mac was aware that he had stopped treating her injuries and was now stroking a fingertip along the sensitive skin of her arm, causing an involuntary shiver. If he noticed, he gave no indication. He continued to touch her while waiting for her answer.
    “Would it bother you?” she asked quietly. She knew it was juvenile to insinuate that there was something romantic between her and Dominic, but she wanted—no, she needed—Mac to care.
    Mac expelled a breath before his hand moved from her arm and glided up to her neck, lingering on the pulse beating wildly there. “You have no idea, Avie. He’s my brother, and I’d give him everything I have . . . but not you, baby. Never you. You. Belong. To. Me.”
    His hand rested against her neck, and their eyes locked. His expression was wild and fierce and for the first time she wasn’t scared. She wanted to taste his lips more