“I didn’t know, but he was a tattoo artist. I went back to his apartment, and I knew what he wanted. It was obvious. I was almost sixteen. Most of my friends thought I lost my v-card way before that, but I was a virgin. I stole a couple of condoms from my mom’s nightstand. I thought I was ready. That I knew what was going to happen. He gave me a drink when I got there, to take the edge off, because I was nervous, and that was the last thing I remember.”
I drag in a shuddery breath and blink fast, refusing to cry. I won’t cry telling him about this, putting this poison between us. I won’t give that bastard any more power over me.
“At least until I woke up. I don’t know what happened. I was alone. On a bench in the middle of this park. I didn’t know where I was. My head hurt. My stomach hurt more. It burned. And it hurt. Between my… well… lower. He drugged me. I know he did. He took what was mine to give freely, and then he stamped his mark on me. Not cleanly either. The stupid part is he was actually a good tattoo artist. I found that out after, in the weeks that followed. I don’t know why he did it. Why he drugged me, I would have… I don’t know why he did any of it.I’ve thought about it for years. Nearly a decade, and I still don’t know.”
Gage vibrates with anger, but he doesn’t release my face. He doesn’t pull away like I have the plague and I’m contagious, able to spread my vile disease to him with a single touch.
“There isn’t any reasoning on earth for something like that. The guy was a piece of shit. He deserves to be put the fuck down.”
“Gage,” I warn, my voice thick and broken. I have to blink hard, since my eyes are on fire. It’s amazing that salt water produced by my own body can burn as badly as it does. “That’s the reason I never told anyone. Why I never pressed charges. Back then my dad was a shit father, but I knew what he’d do. Or what my brothers would do if they found out. I didn’t want any of them to end up in prison because I was stupid. Because I didn’t listen to my mom. Because I didn’t use an ounce of common sense or see it coming.”
Gage’s hand falls away and his other comes up. They land on my shoulders, his big palms bracing me, the heat of his body seeping into mine, bracing me. “No. You do not get to blame yourself for any of this.” His voice is hard and commanding. He captures my attention completely and for a second, I almost want to believe him. “You should have gone to the police, got that bastard put away. They would have done a kit. There would have been proof—”
“And then I what? Would have forever been known as a rape victim? I would have been that fifteen year old girl that everyone looked at for the next three years until I graduated. They would have stared at me like I was broken. Diseased. Withpity. They wouldn’t have treated me like a person. I wouldn’t have been more than a thing.”
“You should have—”
“I know,” I say thickly. “I know.” I lean into his powerful hold, drawing strength, borrowing from him, and he lets me. He lets me. “I know I should have, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want anyone to know, so I buried myself. I went to parties. I forced myself to be happy. Even after high school, when no one was watching. I had to. It was easier to lose myself that way than to remember what happened. I tried so hard to be like I was before. I was different, but no one really bothered enough to see it. Not in high school. Not after, even though I still knew a lot of the same people. I never let anyone near me. I never was… I was… I was never able to be with another man. Not in that way. Not ever.”
Gage’s fingers curl into my shoulders, biting through my thin cardigan, but I welcome the harsh burst of pain. It makes me feel real. It makes me feel human. It makes me feel something, and feeling something, is so much better than feeling nothing at all.
My world tips and reels and before I can fully process what’s happening, I’m slamming up against the granite plain of his chest, my nose pressing into the buttery soft leather of his jacket. His arms wrap around me, strong, sure, protective. They wrap me up like a promise of safety, one that I’ve never known before. I shut my eyes because suddenly they’re so heavy and achy I can’t keep them open. I let the tears flow, inhaling his leather, oil, spicy masculine scent until the tears block up my nose and choke me and I can’t smell anything at all.
He holds me while I let myself cry. No, not just cry. Sob. I come undone, for the first time since it happened. I let myself cry. I let myself feel every single painful, agonizing second of that sorrow. I let it cut me apart and break me, ruin me, and destroy me. I let the flames lick at my flesh until they consume me, until I’m nothing but ash, because in his arms, leaning against his strong chest, my tears and snot and drool and pitiful moans smeared all over his jacket, I’m somehow closer to being whole than I have been in my entire life.
And that is scarier than anything I’ve ever faced.
After my noisy sobs quiet and my tear ducts dry up, leaving behind only salt, Gage presses his hand to the back of my head. I manage to choke away the shuddery sobs that still threaten to burst over me. I gulp the pain back into the yawning, aching pit that’s become my heart.
I lift my cheek off the warm, sticky safety of his jacket. I realize that I’ve made a massive mess of him, and I feel my cheeks heat up. His hand continues in my hair, strong, reassuring, his fingers combing through the strands, and I hate what it makes me feel. That I like it. That I more than like it. That it makes me feel safe and alive. Two things I haven’t felt in a very long time. Dangerous things.
I raise my tear-stained eyes to his and find them glistening with emotion I can’t begin to decode or fully decipher. I trace my eyes over the rest of his face, mapping out the rugged features.
I don’t even know this man. Not really. I’ve wronged him a thousand ways, let him suffer for what happened to me. And now he’s here, offering me comfort. He feels… safe. No, not just safe. His eyes shine with a promise, and it breaks my heart.
When he smiles at me, a tight-lipped turn up of his lips that reaches eyes that are smoky with a mixture of soft and hard, soft for me and hard with vengeance, my heart doesn’t just skip. It stops beating completely. It restarts a few seconds later with a terrifying intensity that is horribly painful. My chest hollows out and goes heavy, like I’ve just managed to somehow swallow a boulder.
“Don’t.” I reach up and gently caress his cheek. He’s warm, alive, soft and hard just like his eyes, his skin velvet, with the rasp of stubble that burns my fingertips and spreads like wildfire, continuing on straight down between my legs.
“Don’t, what?” His voice is heavy, sensual, and wraps around me like a black cloud.
“Don’t look at me like that. Like you’re going to leave here and find out who he is. Find him and strangle the life out of him. It was a long time ago, Gage. I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want anyone going to prison for this, because then he wins.”
Gage blinks at me and I realize how long and full his dark eyelashes are. “He won’t win if he’s in the fucking ground.”
“No.” I shake my head and this time, I flatten my palm along the sharp edge of his jawline. “Please. Promise me you won’t do anything. I’ve hurt you enough. This… this isn’t your battle.”
“It is. You’re my wife,” he snarls, and hearing that word from his lips, possessive, dominant, hungry, turns my insides to water.
“I might be, but we both know that’s not real. You came here to sign those papers. Because I finally got brave enough torealize that we both needed the closure. I’m done with school. Just waiting on my final marks and my certificate, but I know I passed.” I swallow convulsively, knowing that I have to push the words out, no matter how painful they might be. “I don’t want to live here anymore. I mean, it’s a nice place, but it never was my home. It was never mine. It never can be mine, if I know that Steel is paying for it. I didn’t have the money to move out and start over before, but when I’m working, I will. I want a fresh start. A new city. New place that’s actually mine. New job. I want to provide for myself. I want to be able to just… start new. Clean. And that meant you too. Even if going back and swallowing my pride and confronting you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
“No. Approaching me wasn’t hard. Not compared to what you’ve been through,” He says, his voice rough with emotion.
“It’s ugly.” My eyes flick down to my stomach. “What he did. That’s probably the hardest part, the part that doesn’t make sense is why? Why did he do this? Why did he choose me? He treated me like he wanted revenge, but all I ever did was lie about my age. I was stupid. I shouldn’t have done it, but I thought it was cool. Going out with an older guy, and I knew he wouldn’t want anything to do with me if he knew that I wasn’t even legal. I… I was stupid. I wanted to belong to someone. I wanted to have someone and something just for me for the first time in my life.”
“Fucking Viking, he should have been there for you. They both should have been there for you.”
“No. I can’t blame them. My mom might not be a very good mom, but she has her own demons. She found out she was pregnant after she’d broken up with my father. He agreed to pay child support when she told him, but she was basically alone.She never had any family, not really. She ran away from home when she was sixteen and made her own way. I guess, all those men she kept dating, I guess she wanted something of her own as well.”