Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two by Eva Pohler Page A

you?”
    She didn’t reply.
    “Look at me,” he insisted.
    She remained hidden.
    He wrestled for the covers, and she resisted, fighting him.
    “Stop!” she said. “I mean it.”
    “Look at me, Daph.” He continued to wrestle with her. He straddled her and used both hands to wrench the covers out of her grip. “Will you stop? I love you. And you’re beautiful. There’s no reason to hide from me.”
    She covered her face and cried. The morning had started off so nicely, and now she lay beneath Brock, mortified. “Get off!”
    “Look at me. Stop this nonsense. You’re making me mad.”
    “You’re making me mad! Get off!”
    He kissed the backs of her fingers. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed, softly, gently, the very top of her head, over and over, every inch of it, while she lay beneath him sobbing. He was tender, and she was grateful—grateful that he hadn’t easily given in to her tantrum and rolled away. She had wanted him to fight for her, to show he meant what he had said when he had said she was beautiful. She hadn’t believed he could stomach her bald head, and now he was kissing it, was making love to it. 
    God, she loved this guy.
    A moment later, he pried her fingers from her face and kissed her eyelids, her wet cheeks, and her mouth.
    “Let me love you,” he whispered with his mouth against hers. “Please. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He kissed her softly—her forehead, her nose, her eyes, her cheeks. “I was so scared of losing you yesterday. You can’t imagine how terrified. Those bastard sharks. I wanted to kill them.”
    She felt warm tears drop from his face onto hers. She opened her eyes and reached her arms around his neck, pulling him close, ready to finally let him love her.
     
    After they had each showered and dressed—she in another borrowed hoodie now that her scarf was ruined—they met her parents for breakfast. As soon as they arrived, her parents hugged her and asked about the cut on her leg. Daphne told them it was fine, and, as they filled their plates in the buffet line, she listened to them replay the events of the day before—how terrifying it had been to see those sharks, and the blood, and her father floundering, and how grateful they were that their baby girl was alright. Daphne lost her appetite. The guilt was getting to her.
    Hortense and Lee Reynolds and their ilk were sitting at their usual table, pretending not to watch her and her family make their way to theirs. The younger crowd of regulars hadn’t yet arrived, except for Dave and Vince. When she glanced their way, Dave winked and smiled before saying something to Vince. Vince grinned, nodded, and gave Daphne a finger wave. As the hour passed, the others trickled in: Emma and Gregory entered holding hands, followed a few minutes later by Stan.  Cam and Bridget were the last of the group to arrive. They came together, each with glowing faces, tan from the sun, but beaming with happiness, too. This made Daphne wonder again if there were something more than friendship between them.
    “I’m real impressed with the food here,” Daphne’s father said as he loaded his fork with a bite of waffle and scrambled egg.
    “And the rooms are nice,” Sharon added.
    Daphne stifled a laugh and thought, Well at least there’s that. You’re about to be tortured out of your mind, but at least you’ll be able to say the food was good and the rooms were nice .
    “You okay, Daph?” Brock asked.
    “What? Oh, yeah. Fine.”
    “Did you remember to take your antibiotic this morning?” her mother asked.
    She hadn’t. “I’ll take it as soon as I get back.”
    “You won’t want an infection in that wound,” her dad said.
    She suppressed the urge to say, “Obviously.”
    She didn’t have to fight hard to keep from speaking her thoughts, though, because at that moment, a scene broke out across the room at the younger crowd’s table. Hortense Gray stood, stiff and frowning, in front of her son and