Louis’ palm slides against my back and I let out a small sigh as his lips touch the side of my head. “You ready to go home, baby?” he mutters.
Turning around, I look at the once chaotic scene. There is yellow police tape around the front door of the cabin but the coroner is gone, the cruisers have all left, except for Deputy Hernandez and the woman that I just finished talking to.
Pressing my lips together, I shift my gaze up to meet Louis’. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
I don’t mean that I’m ready to just go home, but I’m ready for what’s to come, whatever that may be.
LOUIS
The almost two-hour drive back to our house feels like it lasts a lifetime, that is until Tulip falls asleep against my shoulder. Shawn and Aaron stay quiet for about twenty minutes, probably to ensure that she’s really asleep before they start asking me questions.
“She gonna be okay?” Shawn asks.
Aaron snorts. “Girl is made of steel, but nobody would be okay after that fucking disaster.”
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I want to deny what Aaron is saying, but I know that he’s right. Tulip may not have pulled the trigger, but I know my girl and once the shock settles, she’s going to feel guilty about this. I have a little experience in the feeling guilt department, but since I still feel guilty as fuck, I don’t think that I’ll be much help to her.
“Nope,” I agree.
“Fuck,” Shawn hisses.
Nodding, I clear my throat. “All we can do is be there for her as much as we can.”
“You’re still fuckin’ training,” Aaron’s gravelly voice announces.
“I know and I don’t plan on stopping either.”
“Good,” he snaps.
Lifting my gaze to meet his in the rearview mirror, my annoyance at his words disappears. He looks concerned, and his eyes are focused on the back of Tulip’s head. He’s worried about her, we all are.
Pulling into the driveway, Aaron and Shawn exit the truck, but not before Aaron reminds us that we only have two hours before we need to be in the gym. Shaking my head, I wonder why we can’t have one fucking day off, considering the night we’ve had, but I don’t question him.
Honestly, I think that I’m going to need the gym to work all of this shit out. Because I have a feeling everything inside of me is going to explode unless I fight it out of my system.
I don’t bother waking Tulip up. I jump out of the truck, then climb up on the step before I reach inside. Cradling her sleeping body against my own, I climb back down onto the ground.
I have no doubt that she’s going to want a shower tonight, but I want her to get as much sleep as possible. She probably won’t be able to close her eyes again once she’s showered and visions of what she endured start to play on repeat in her head.
The house is silent and once we’re inside of our bedroom, I lock the door behind me, not wanting anyone or anything interrupting us. Her clothes are dirty from sitting on the ground at that cabin, as are mine. Taking her into the bathroom, I slowly set her down on the counter next to the sink.
She moans as her eyelids flutter open. I can tell that her memories haven’t assaulted her yet, because I see it the moment that they do.
“Louis,” she breathes.
“We’re home, baby. Locked up tight inside. Nothin’s gonna bother you, not ever again,” I promise.
She shakes her head, her bloodshot and swollen eyes filling with more tears. Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman cry as many tears as Tulip has since I found her at that shithole.
Gathering her in my arms, I lift my hand and press my palm to the back of her head, allowing her to bury her face against my chest.
“Nothin’s gonna hurt you, baby. Not ever again. I’m here. Always.”
She sobs against my shirt, completely soaking it. I hold her, allowing her to get all her shit out, all of it. She needs to cry, needs to get everything out and this is one way that she can.
The other way, I’ll be here to help her with, too. I’ll fuck her until she’s exhausted and when that doesn’t work, when the anger sets in, I’ll wear her body out in the gym.
I am here for her.
Here to take care of her, here to fucking love her.
“Let’s get cleaned up,” I murmur when her tears stop flowing.
She nods her head. Leaving her on the counter, I step to the side and turn the water on, giving it a minute to heat up and fill the bathroom with soothing steam.
Returning back to her, I hesitantly begin to strip her clothes off. I don’t know what happened, yet. I don’t know if he assaulted her in any way, so each move that I make, I do it slowly in case she needs me to stop.
Tulip reaches for me, her hand wrapping around my forearm as I reach behind her to unhook her bra. Lifting her eyes to meet mine, she hesitates as I wait for her to speak, my fingers frozen against the hooks of her bra.
“He didn’t hurt me like that. He had plans, but he didn’t touch me,” she whispers.
Licking my lips, I nod once. “Okay, Tullie,” I whisper.
She scoots a little closer to the edge of the counter, her lips millimeters from my own. “Will you touch me, Louie? Will you take it all away?”
Shaking my head once, I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. “Nothing will take it away, baby. I’ll touch you, fuck, I’ll worship you, but you need to know that it won’t take any of it away,” I rasp.
She nods once. “I know.”
Without another word, I strip her bare, then myself. Walking her into the shower, I worship my sweet girl.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
LOUIS
The days pass, they turn into weeks and Tulip is completely detached every single moment. A couple days after her abduction, I called the guys and had them load up her personal things from her apartment. Hutton thankfully knew who her landlord was and explained everything before she turned in the keys for her.
Tulip hasn’t done much. She gets up every afternoon, takes a shower, dresses in a t-shirt of mine and a pair of my sweats, camps in front of the television on the sofa, eats dinner with me, then we go to bed and make love until she falls asleep.
I haven’t been sleeping much myself. Usually, I wait until she’s passed out, then I sit in the chair in the corner and try to catch a few minutes. I’m too fucking scared that I’m going to go into another dream episode and hurt her again.
Too fucking much has happened in just a short period of time. Neither one of us is really processing any of it. We’re going through the motions and trying to make it day by day.
I have to leave in a couple days to start all the hype, the commercial filming, the interviews, and the final days of my training before the fight. But I know that I can’t leave her like this. She missed the meeting with the school she’d been so excited to go to. When I mentioned it, she only shrugged, as if she didn’t give a fuck about it.
She’s depressed.
She watched her ex die right in front of her, after she’d been kidnapped, I don’t blame her for being depressed at all.
The knock on the door causes her to practically jump out of her skin. Clearing my throat, I stand and jog over to glance through the peephole, even though I know who is on the other side because I called them.