Chapter 338
[ 472 words ]
Chapter 338:
The back of her skull connected hard with the solid oak headboard.
A sharp, white-hot pain exploded behind her eyes. The room spun violently, the dim lights smearing into blurry streaks.
Jarrod froze instantly. The sound, the sudden slackness in her body, cut through his possessive rage like a shard of ice. He released her wrists immediately, pulling back. His dark eyes, moments ago burning with lust, were now wide with alarm as he scanned her face.
He saw her pupils dilate, her face pale and suddenly clammy.
“Caroline?” he barked, his voice rough with a fear that was jarring and raw.
She groaned, a soft, wounded sound, lifting a trembling hand to the back of her head. The pain was a pulsing, nauseating wave.
“Don’t,” he commanded, but his tone was different. He gently pushed her hand away, his large, calloused fingers probing the area with a surprising, practiced tenderness. He was checking for blood, for swelling, his touch now clinical and terrifyingly gentle.
A wave of intense self-loathing crashed over him, visible in the tightening of his jaw. The beast he’d unleashed had physically hurt her.
He tried to help her sit up, his voice now a low, apologetic murmur. “Let me see. Are you dizzy? Nauseous?”
The shift from predator to caregiver was so abrupt it felt like whiplash. But his touch, once a brand of ownership, now felt like an insult.
𝗥о𝗆𝖺n𝘤𝗲 ո𝗼𝘷𝖾𝘭𝘀 о𝘯 𝘨𝖺𝘭nо𝗏elѕ.𝖼𝘰𝗆
Caroline shoved his hands away with surprising strength, recoiling from him as if he were on fire. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed, her voice trembling with a mixture of pain and fury.
Tears streamed down her face, hot and angry. They weren’t tears of fear anymore. They were tears of violation.
She scrambled away from him to the far edge of the massive bed, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them in a tight, defensive posture. She was a fortress under siege.
Jarrod stayed on his side of the bed, the sheet pooling around his waist. He held his hands up in a universal gesture of surrender, his face a mask of profound regret. The sight of her genuine fear was a knife twisting in his gut. He had shattered her trust. Completely.
“Caroline, I just want to make sure you don’t have a concussion,” he said softly, his voice stripped of all command.
She ignored him, staring at the blank wall, her mind replaying the violence of his kiss and the smiling face in the photograph in a toxic, repeating loop. He wanted her, but did he want her, or the memory of someone else?
He got off the bed slowly, his movements deliberate, non-threatening. He walked around to her side but kept a safe distance, kneeling on the floor so he was below her eye level. It was a position of supplication. The commander of a JSOC base was on his knees.
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