Striker: A Dark Bully Romance (Redwood Rebels Book 1) Rachel Leigh (the reading list book .TXT) 📖

to pay for what he’s done. Not only to me and Blakely, but also for Jasper’s mom. She died because of him. So yeah,” I nod again, “I’m sure.”

Her hands wrap around my neck and that foreign feeling returns. “Then let’s make him pay.”

20

There is no way I can begin to fathom what Talon has been through. I’ve basically lived my life as an orphan, but my parents do love me. Dad might love his job more, and Mom may have had an odd way of showing her love, but it existed. I could lie and tell Talon that deep down his parents did love him, but I truly don’t think they did. His dad is the devil incarnate, and I’m not above an exorcism that sends his soul straight to hell. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t plan to now, but Talon deserves a shot at life. He can’t rest easy until his dad can no longer touch him or anyone else.

I don’t look at it as murder—I call it justice. The death penalty that he deserves.

“What are you thinking about?” I say to Talon, as my head rests on his chest. He’s been quiet ever since I agreed to help him. There is so much more that I need to know, so many unanswered questions, and as soon as this is over, I will demand answers.

“You’ll be the first person I’ve ever shared a bed with.”

I look up at him, resting my chin on his chest. “Really? No ex-girlfriends or one-night stands?”

His chin tucks as he tries to look at my eyes. “I don’t usually like sleeping next to others. You’ll probably laugh at this, but I’ve never even cuddled with a girl before.”

“I would never laugh at that.” I sort of understand it. He rejects affection because he’s not used to it. It’s like caging a lion and expecting the wild animal to let you pet it. It takes time. “But, why me?”

“Don’t know. I keep asking myself the same thing. Aside for the obvious, you’re sexy as hell, but you also do something to me that I can’t explain. It’s this overpowering need to be near you. To protect you. To touch you.” His fingers trail up and down my arm, leaving behind a path of goosebumps. “Now you get to tell me why you’re still here? Why stay in my darkness?”

My shoulders shrug. “Maybe I like your darkness. It ignites a flame in my lightless world.”

Talon begins to scoot up, taking me with him. With his back pressed to the headboard, I do the same. “I need to know what happened that night?”

I knew this was coming. I’m just not sure I’m ready to talk about it, yet. Talon is furious with Zed, but there’s a part of me that worries he’ll blame me for not stopping it. I drop back down and roll over to face the wall. I can’t look at his face when I explain.

“Please, Marni. I need to know, or it will continue to eat through me until there is nothing left.”

“I really don’t think you wanna know. We should just let it go.”

“Not a chance in hell.”

He has no idea what he’s asking for. He knows Zed touched me, but he doesn’t know it was on the inside or that he was sleeping on the floor—because I drugged him.

“You know how I took your phone?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a shift in the mattress, and I know he’s peering over to look at my face, but I pinch my eyes shut. “I needed to transfer the data to a SD card, but you were everywhere I went. So I did something.”

“Wait a minute. You have a card with my phone data on it? What kind of data?” His body shoots back to the headboard hastily as it crashes against the wall.

“I don’t have it, but there’s more.”

“What happened?” he quips.

“I put a sleeping pill in your drink.” My lips press together and I clench my eyes shut. Opening one eye, I expect him to make a move, but he’s still in the same spot.

“You knocked me out?” He laughs. He actually fucking laughs.

“I’m sorry. If I’d thought for a second about your history with pills, I would have never done it, but it slipped my mind and I was desperate.”

“I suspected something along those lines happened.” He pauses. “Ok. I can forgive you for that. After all, I’ve done worse.”

“I got you upstairs before you completely passed out and you pretty much fell to the floor in my room and went to sleep. Then I snuck away and transferred the data.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just turn my phone on and snoop?”

“Well, there’s the passcode block. I also worried you were tracking it, so I only turned it on to transfer the data then shut it right back off.”

“Ok, that’s not important. Where does Zed fit into all of this?”

Tugging the blanket up over my shoulders, I attempt to hide the chills that have washed over me. “When I got back, you were still sleeping on the floor. I covered you up and crawled into bed. A couple minutes later, he came in.”

Talon leaps off the bed. I don’t turn around to see what he’s doing. I just get this over with. “He got in the bed with me. Showed me the video and tried to turn me against you. Which, at that time, wasn’t difficult.”

“Did you fuck him?!” he blurts out, gruff and unmannered.

My body shoots to a sitting position in a knee-jerk reaction. “No!”

“Then what the hell happened, Marni? You just laid there and cuddled all night while bashing me?”

I shake my head, dropping my tone. “No. He took my pants off and...” My words trail off.

“And what, damnit?”

“He fingered me.”

Shivers roll through me and my body jolts up when the lamp on his dresser is torn from the outlet and thrown across the room. Black splinters of ceramic coat the floor, leaving the wall with a