I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two by Knight, Natasha (ready to read books .txt) 📗

I have a few seconds, I think, before my lungs force me to breathe. Force me to take in air when all they’ll get is water. Icy cold sea water.

Then I feel him. One powerful arm banding around my ribs and pulling me up with him. He’s a strong swimmer too. Stronger than me. He’s fully clothed and he’s hauling me up with him. How did he even find me down here?

As soon as we break the surface, I open my mouth only to suck in air and salt water. I choke on it, coughing, my nose and throat on fire.

“It’s all right. I’ve got you,” Cristiano says.

I’m not sure what’s colder, the water or the air? I still can’t move my arms but I’m thrashing against him, kicking wildly, desperately.

But he holds tight, keeping me above the surface. “You’re safe.”

Another set of hands close around my arms and I’m hauled up into the boat. A different one than the fishing boat that’s bobbing, now deserted, not too far away.

I’m on my belly throwing up water. How much did I swallow in those moments I was under? It was moments, right?

Cristiano is beside me, hand on my back.

After what I hope is the last of the retching, I lay my cheek on the floor of the boat. This one doesn’t stink like the other one.

I feel something cold at my back then, at my wrists. I try to pull away, but Cristiano shushes me and a moment later, my arms are free. I rub them, right hand around my left wrist first, then the other way, the skin raw.

Cristiano’s hands touch my shoulders and then he’s wrapping something warm around me. A blanket.

I look back at him as I hold onto the blanket. He’s soaked, his eyes locked on me, watching me so closely. Dante comes into view behind him. He’s soaked, too, and staring at me. Did he go in after me, too?

“Cristiano,” a man says, drawing my attention.

Cristiano drags his gaze to the man.

I follow it to his uncle who looks a little worse for wear.

“We can catch up with them,” his uncle says. “Get that bastard and finish this.”

“No.” Cristiano shifts his gaze back to me.

“What do you mean, no? He’s closer than he’s ever been!”

“No,” his response is quiet, slow. He doesn’t look away from me to answer but bends down to lift me into his arms. “Back to the island,” he nods to another man. He walks us past his uncle, into an interior room and closes the door.

I realize I’m shivering. That noise is my teeth chattering.

“There’s no tub,” he says in that way of his, that abrupt, awkward way he has. It makes me wonder again how much he’s been around people. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable. Not at all. He just doesn’t waste words and doesn’t seem to care how he comes across.

He sets me on my feet and reaches around me to run the water in the small shower. He tests it then, looks at me, takes the blanket from me.

I shudder.

He walks me into the shower and turns me to face him.

Hot water runs over me, washing the salt from my soaked hair, warming my body. It also makes the welts on my skin and my raw wrists burn. I want it though. I need the heat. I need to get what just happened off my body.

I watch him look me over and I wonder what he’s thinking. He looks so pained. I guess I don’t expect that.

He reaches a hand out, drenched button-down stuck to him. It’s what he was wearing at the wedding, I realize. God. It feels like years have passed since then. He runs a finger over the topmost welt. I hiss in a breath and he draws back, inhaling tightly himself.

His eyes are a midnight sky when they meet mine. “What else did he do?” His voice is hoarse, tortured.

Words bubble up inside me and it’s like my throat is filled with sea water again.

What else did he do?

Where do I start?

When the tears come, I drop my head. When his big hand closes around my neck to pull me into his chest, I don’t resist. I don’t want to. I don’t have any energy left.

As strong as I’ve been all these years, as much as I’ve fought, where has it gotten me? What has it gotten me?

People die around me.

People die because of me.

Women—girls—are violated, their lives destroyed because of me. Because of who I am. Because of my family.

My brothers may have started this, but it doesn’t exempt me from blame. It doesn’t exonerate me. I didn’t fight hard enough because if I had, I wouldn’t be standing here now. I wouldn’t be wrapped up in this man’s powerful arms if I’d fought hard enough. In no way do I deserve this comfort. Not when I know what’s already happened to the others and what they will still endure.

All these years I’ve thought of my freedom. I’ve thought of Noah’s freedom. How selfish am I? How selfish when I knew all along what they were doing, and I did nothing. Nothing apart from a ridiculous, pathetic hunger strike.

The woman who accused me of being one of them, she was right. I am.

And I am responsible.

I don’t deserve to have survived tonight.

7

Cristiano

I stand with my arms folded watching from across the room as the doctor finishes examining Scarlett. She’s sleeping. Didn’t even fight me when I told the doctor to give her something to relax her. Something strong enough to knock her out.

“What is it about her?” Dante asks, his eyes, too, on Scarlett.

I turn to him. He shifts his gaze to mine and takes a swallow of whiskey.

“Why would you give everything up for her?” he continues.

I take a deep breath and swallow my own drink. It’s not enough. “She’s innocent, Dante. And she can’t help her name.”

He snorts.

“Why did you go in after her then?”