What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) by Melyssa Winchester

wetness on my face before my brain fully registers what’s happening and where there had once been warmth, everything has suddenly become deathly cold.
    That was it. Her limit. She’s gone.
    Feeling a pull on my hand, I turn and look toward it and that’s when I see her. She’s not gone. She’s still there, attempting to use what little body weight she has to pull me and all of mine up. Pulling me away from the abyss I just dived into.
    “Belle…”
    “If your brother wasn’t already rotting in prison, I would have half a mind to find him and bury him under it for what he did to you. I never knew. I knew things were bad, Kay, I did. I saw the cops showing up, I saw the marks on you even when you weren’t with me anymore, but I didn’t know it was that bad. I…” her voice fades out and my brain begins to scream, begging and pleading with her to speak again so that I can find my way out of this.
    This fucking nightmare I created.
    “I should have done something sooner.” She rasps, the familiar delicateness of her tone completely stripped away until there’s nothing but emptiness left.
    A way I know all too well.
    Rising to my feet, slipping my fingers through hers and tightening the hold, I force myself to take control of the situation. The thought of her being pulled into this with me is too much to bear. I need to do what she tried to and get us out of here.
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “It’s not yours either.” She whispers as our eyes meet.
    I may not agree with what she’s saying, but if it means getting the hell out of this bathroom and the memories that have now overtaken it—overtaken us, I’ll say whatever she needs to hear. I can’t let her fall any deeper into this. I’m sick enough inside knowing that it touched her at all.
    She was never supposed to know any of this.
    “I think we’ve had enough of the journal for one night.”
    With the slight nod of her head, her body falls into line with mine as I turn and head for the door. The second we make our way through, allowing myself the brief luxury of inhaling the air deeper than I think I ever have before.
    What was in my journal. What brought me to the bathroom, and every bit of what happened in there, it has to stay there. I have to lock it away.
    Remember her earlier words.
    We’re not those people anymore.
    “Kay?” she asks softly as we near the door to our room. My name on her lips causing me to pause mid step.
    “Yeah?”
    “Will you do something for me?”
    This girl. When is she going to learn that I’ll do anything for her? That all she has to do is ask and it’s hers?
    “Anything.”
    Slipping her hand out of mine and taking a step back, she closes her eyes, breathing in deep before exhaling and repeating the motion three more times before opening them. Her lips raising softly into a smile as she steps toward me. Her fingers sliding themselves under the ends of my shirt and lifting until working together, we’ve slipped it off and to the floor.
    “Belle, what are you doing?”
    Backing up again, she slowly walks in a circle around me, pausing in her second go around when she reaches my back. As her fingers trace all of the lines etched into my skin from the years of it being done, I shiver before tensing.
    “What did you want me to do?” I repeat, hoping she’ll take the hint and put me out of my misery.
    Slipping her hand through mine, she walks us into our bedroom and after closing the door behind us, motions to the bed.
    “Sit.”
    “Why?”
    “You’ll see. Just please sit for me.”
    When I do as she asks, she makes her way around the side, the bed dipping in when she climbs on top of it and moves over to where I’m sitting on the edge. Her face angled perfectly with the side of my neck as she places the softest of kisses on my skin, setting it ablaze.
    Making me burn the way I did in the bathroom earlier, but for a completely different reason.
    There’s no rage or hatred behind her touches or behind