“You know what’s goin’ down with you and me. You know what you feel when I kiss you. You know what you feel when you sit with me like you’re sittin’ right now. You know what you felt when you were watchin’ me move inside you after I made you come. And you know how you felt in your fuckin’ kitchen six fuckin’ hours ago. She does not know any of that shit.”

“I haven’t been exactly good at picking men,” I pointed out then instantly wished I hadn’t. In fact, I wished I had the power to grab my words and shove them back in my mouth when his hand got tight at my neck, his eyes got hard and glittering, and the extreme voltage of his anger started snapping in the room.

“I am not Heller,” he growled.

“I know,” I whispered, my hands moving to rest on his chest.

His eyes seared into mine. His were molten and not in a good way.

“Okay,” I said softly. “You’re not Damian, but right now, I have to admit, you’re freaking me out.”

“Yeah?” he shot back. “Well, you just linked me to a man who supplied Denver for years with shit that fucked a lot of people’s lives and the lives those people’s shit fucked in turn and who also took his hands to and raped my woman. Sorry I’m freakin’ you out, babe, but you gotta get that doesn’t make me too happy.”

God, for years, no one knew about what happened to me and now…

Now, it was right in my face and it was Brock who kept putting it there.

I closed my eyes and twisted my head away.

Brock kept speaking.

“I know why you aren’t lookin’ at me, Tess, but that shit happened to you. You gotta face it, and for this shit to work between us, one of the people you gotta face it with is me,” he declared. I opened my eyes and turned them back to him.

“So, you’re a law enforcement officer and Denver’s resident sage on how to deal with being raped? Is this what I’m learning about you now?” I asked sarcastically, finding myself no longer hesitant, cautious, and unsure but totally pissed off.

“Yeah, since my sister and a girlfriend of mine both got raped, both of them were bad as that shit always is, but only one of them was by someone they thought they could trust. I think I know something about it,” he fired back and I blinked in shock as this unwelcome but somehow crucial knowledge filtered through me.

Then I whispered, “Sorry?”

He didn’t repeat himself.