Tightly strung, quivering with tension, she met his gaze. "I told you that Carver stayed after me."

"Yes."

"He knows I'm afraid of bugs. I mean, really afraid."

Denver had to point out the obvious. "And yet today, because you knew I needed a hand, you stayed and helped."

Her eyes closed, her voice strained. "I was so scared."

"When someone faces their fears like that, it's called being brave."

She shook her head. "Not when the fear is-" she swallowed hard "-stupid insects."

"You're wrong. There are all kinds of fears, and people are all affected differently." When he released her wrists, she lowered her arms enough to put her palms on his chest. "I was so damned proud of you."

Her self-conscious laugh hurt him. "If I was brave, it's only because you were there and I knew you wouldn't let anything get me."

Progress. "I won't let anything or anyone ever hurt you."

Lashes lifted, showing him her beautiful dark eyes-and her stubborn pride. "I want to take care of myself."

"You do, girl. Given the foundation you started with, you're doing great. I'm proud of you, so I wish you'd be proud of yourself, too."

She did some of that sexy-bottom-lip-nibbling, then gave an uncertain nod.

"Good," he whispered, choking on his damn pride before steadying himself with a deep breath. "Now I need you to understand that relationships are all about taking care of each other."

"Right." Her mouth quirked. "Except I don't do anything for you."

She couldn't be more wrong. Thinking of everything she did for him, to him, made him desperate to taste her. Groaning, he took her mouth for a long, deep kiss then, keeping his forehead to hers, he admitted, "Seeing my dad again after all this time feels easier because I know you'll be there with me."

"Really?"

"Definitely." This time he pressed his mouth to her forehead.

"I suppose if you're determined to take on Carver, you need to know everything. You have to understand exactly how twisted and sick he is."

Denver already had a good idea, but he hoped that by telling him, by sharing the nightmare, it'd take some of the burden off her narrow shoulders.

She pushed him to his back and crawled atop him, then laid her head on his shoulder. "Once, before I could get away, Carver held me down and made me kiss him. He said if I didn't, he'd put this enormous cicada on me. It was screaming-" She lifted her head. "You know how those things do?"

His heart twisted. "Yes, I know. They scare a lot of people."

She hugged up against him again. "It was making that awful noise and he kept getting it closer to me just to see me go hysterical. I tried not to, but..." She took his hand and wedged it beneath her left breast. "Even talking about it now makes my heart race."

Carver had traumatized her. Deliberately. No wonder she was so afraid of bugs. If ever a man deserved a beat-down...

"He kissed me," she whispered, "but I was sobbing the whole time. And...and he liked it."

Motherfucker. Rage exploded, but with Cherry being his blanket, she'd feel it if he bunched up the way he wanted to. Determined to shield her from seeing his rage, Denver suppressed what he could and instead relaxed his hands so that they cupped her ass. It took him two tries before he managed to ask, "How old were you?"

"Not quite seventeen." Her fingers toyed with his chest hair. "Carver was twenty-three. Big and muscular." Again she lifted up to see him. "His brothers always watched. Carver enjoyed playing with me and they enjoyed seeing it. It was like he was showing off or something. Gene would go all intense and serious, practically drooling. Mitty would laugh like a kid watching a cartoon. Their reactions were so creepy. And they made me feel..." Her voice faded away. Cuddling down against him again, she whispered, "Helpless. They made me feel so damned helpless."

The reality of what she'd gone through was even more destructive than what he'd imagined. Physical abuse, yes. But also very emotionally disturbing. "I'm so damn sorry." He'd make them pay. All three of them.

"A few months after that, he caught me alone and he forced me to the woods." She sounded impassive, as if she were telling a dull story.

Denver felt the sharpening tension and stroked her from her behind to her shoulders and back again, even down and over her thighs. He wanted to touch every inch of her as if he could somehow heal the nightmare, maybe make the memory go away.

He turned them to their sides, tucking her close, protectively holding her. "Take your time, honey."

While he waited, he continued to stroke her, his brain in turmoil, his stomach sick.

After a shuddering breath, she started talking again. "He'd cleared a spot in the woods and he had a stake in the ground, with ropes tied to it."

Jesus.

"All around it, the locals waited, some looking uneasy, some anxious. He planned to make me the show and I knew it was going to be bad but I couldn't get free." Suddenly she sat up, but held his hand. "I'm going to rush through this, okay?"

Volatile emotion made a fist around his windpipe and he had to swallow twice before the restriction eased enough for him to speak. "Whatever you need." He sat up, too, and there, in the bed, they faced each other, him big and capable and her, whether she'd admit it or not, small and vulnerable.

"He stripped off my shirt and bra and tied my arms behind me to the stake. I thought he was going to rape me. I still think that was his plan."

With others to watch. To regain his composure, he closed his eyes, but only for a second. Cherry needed him. He'd asked for the whole truth so he'd damn well stick with her, body and soul, while she shared.

"Anyway," she said, her hand in his, "he'd wasted too much time for rape."

"Wasted how?"

"He... He had all these disgusting bugs and he kept throwing them at me. Some of the people watching laughed about it. Some just watched. No one helped me." Her hold on his hand tightened. "Every so often he'd come get a bug off me, but he'd use that as an excuse to cop a feel, too, and I was so hysterical I can't even remember what I said. I just remember...crying."

He'd tortured her. And some sick fucks had stayed to watch.

"There were maybe ten people there. Two of them girls who screamed each time one of the bugs took flight. I think I hated them the most, because they were just as scared of the bugs, but they stayed and watched anyway." She shook her head. "About the time Carver tired of that game and told me he was going to take off my shorts, Janet showed up."

"The stepmother?"

Cherry nodded. "I can still see it exactly as it happened. She stepped into the clearing wearing pajama pants and a man's T-shirt, her hair all ratty, a cigarette caught in her teeth and her shotgun aimed at Carver. She said she was looking for a reason to shoot him."

"Did she always look like that?"

"The cigarette, yes. The shotgun, often. But she usually cleaned up. I think she must've woken up after a late night of drinking and when we were all gone, she got suspicious."

"Thank God."

Cherry nodded. "She was like this crazy, mean avenger. She told one of the idiot girls there to cut me loose. Everyone was silent, unsure of what would happen. It was eerie quiet-except for the bugs. Bugs are never, ever quiet."

Using only his pinkie, Denver teased over her cheek, easing a tendril of hair away from her face.

Cherry didn't seem to notice.

"After I was free Janet backed us out of there and put me in her truck. It was so weird, but still no one said anything. Carver just stared after us like he hated us both-or like maybe he was planning...something." Her brows twitched as if even now, she couldn't understand his hostility. "Janet told me she'd had enough of worrying about Carver bringing the law down on them. She was so mad at him, saying he was too reckless." Cherry swallowed hard. "She also said she hated any man who'd rape a woman, and she knew that's where Carver was headed. So she'd brought some cash for me, my purse and papers and a few of my clothes in a bag. She drove me to the highway, told me to get out, to leave and never come back."

That was more than he could take, so Denver scooped her up to his lap again and squeezed the breath right out of her. She didn't complain, not even when he started to rock her.

Sliding her fingers into his hair, she whispered, "I'm okay."

She wanted to soothe him? Denver gave a low, gravelly laugh. "Better than okay. You're perfect." A thought occurred to him. "Did you ever consider reporting them? All of them?"

Shaking her head, she said, "It wouldn't have mattered. The local authorities covered for them. They came around and visited. Left with cash and sometimes drugs. Carver and his whole family had immunity in the town."

And she'd been stuck in the middle of it with nowhere to turn-except to escape on her own.

Cherry cupped a hand to his jaw. "Do you understand, Denver? I took drug money. They never discussed the business with me, but I knew. I'd have had to be a special kind of stupid not to know. Stupid and blind."

"And you're neither."

As if she didn't understand his nonchalant attitude, she searched his face. "They sold to dealers who ruined peoples' lives. There were beatings." Her gaze held desperately to his. "My own parents died because of a drug deal. Maybe even from trading with Carver's family. But at the time I didn't care. I just wanted out of there."

"You were a kid in survival mode, honey. And I'm so incredibly glad that you not only survived, you became you, someone who's now very important to me."

Her gaze searched his. "You don't think I was weak?"

"God, no. You were stronger than any kid should ever have to be."

Her bottom lip quivered, but only for a second, then she launched herself at him.

And to Denver's surprise, she started kissing him, not for comfort, but for so much more. "Cherry..."

She rushed into convincing arguments. "I can't do anything about Carver right now. He's out there, still a terrible human being, but he's not a problem I can solve tonight."

He wasn't a problem she had to solve on her own. But he'd already told her that.

"If we don't switch up the mood, I'm going to be an emotional mess."

God, he loved her. "You can be a mess with me."

A reluctant, only slightly sad smile teased her beautiful mouth. "I've been a mess with you too many times already. For tonight, I just want to forget Carver and the past. I want to enjoy you." Her heated gaze coerced him; her hands moved over him in irresistible ways. Lowering her voice, she whispered, "You can do that for me."

Given there was nothing he wouldn't do for her, how could he argue with that? He couldn't. Whether she was flirting, laughing, crying or sick, she was his. He'd show her that, and maybe by morning she'd believe it.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

STRETCHING AWAKE ON the narrow, uncomfortable bed, Carver glanced at the clock. Nearly 7:00 a.m. He should go back to sleep but he knew he wouldn't. In the bed next to him, Mitty snored loud enough to rattle the windows and Gene muttered in his sleep.

But that wasn't what kept him awake.

Off and on all night Cherry had plagued his brain, leaving him edgy, too hot.

And angry.

Between dark, stirring dreams, he'd awakened a dozen times to ponder her reaction to the surprise he'd left in her car. Did she scream? Cry?

Did her fucking boyfriend console her?

Carver's hands fisted and his breathing deepened. Eventually, he knew, he'd make that guy pay. For interfering. For fucking her.

For having what Carver wanted.

Despite her hulking protector, it had been easy to pull the hoax. Too easy. He'd disabled the car to get her to leave it behind, and when she did, reacting exactly as he'd wanted, he, Gene and Mitty had slipped through the dead of night to dump in the snakes and various insects.

God, he wished he could have been there to watch her when she first opened that door. But even though he was a risk taker, he knew that'd be pushing the limits. On the quiet street filled with middle-class families, there'd be no place to hide, no place to wait and watch.

Staring up at the ceiling of the cheap motel room, Carver grinned. Cherry had always suffered a bone-deep fear of insects-a phobia he'd often used to taunt her. Once, when she'd been about fifteen, he'd dropped a big, juicy grasshopper down the back of her shirt.

Screaming as if he'd poured scalding water on her, she'd shed the shirt to free the hopper. Even then she'd had big tits. Didn't matter that she wore a plain white cotton bra. He'd gotten a boner, as had both his brothers. Janet had come running, bitched them all out, and taken Cherry inside.

But not before he'd stomped the bug, squishing guts everywhere-and almost making Cherry barf.

From that moment on, he'd taken perverse pleasure in putting a centipede in her bed, a cockroach in her cereal. Once he'd pinned her down beneath him, a cicada in his hand, and made her kiss him.

She'd cried the whole time, but damn, she'd tasted good.

Fuck. Carver sat up in a rush and ran both hands over his face. A crying, closemouthed kiss from a schoolgirl, and it still turned him on to think of it. When he got her again, he'd tie her down and do whatever he wanted to her. He knew her secrets.

As much as she feared snakes and bugs, she feared rape more.

Mitty raised his head. "What are you doin'?" Eyes squinted, he checked the clock. "You okay, Carver?"

Face half smashed in a pillow, Gene sneered, "He's thinking about her again."

"Go back to sleep. Both of you." Carver pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and sat back against the headboard. Yes, he was thinking of her. How could he not now that he was so close to getting her again?

"Let it go," Gene grumbled as he rolled to his back.

Not a chance.

"The longer we stay here, the longer we're neglecting business."

"We need her to finish our business," Carver reminded him. "Or have you forgotten that Janet hid our cash?"

Mitty got up, scratched his crotch, and lumbered into the bathroom. He left the door open while he drained his pipe and said, "We could just make Janet tell us."