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For years, I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe again. Thought I’d spend the rest of my days fearful of what cruel, sadistic punishment my captors might conjure up to make them even more money.
“Please,” she begged, touching her forehead against mine. “Don’t shut me out.” She cautiously reached for the top button on my shirt again.
This time when I grabbed her wrist, it wasn’t to stop her.
Pulling back, I kept my eyes locked on hers as I lifted the bottom of my shirt and brought her hand to my abdomen, resting it on one of the many scars that now marred my frame. It wasn’t even one of the more prominent ones, but by her sharp intake of breath and quivering chin, she could tell what it was.
“What happened?” she asked in a pained voice.
“Car crash,” I lied, not stopping her as she continued to explore my body with her fingers, tracing the lines of several scars that were my inescapable reminder of the years I spent in captivity.
Of the hell I endured day after day.
It was why I kept them. Why I refused to go through any treatment that would dull their appearance. Not just because I wanted Liam to see the proof of the lives I took when he learned who I was. But becauseIwanted proof of the lives I took, too.
Proof that I wasn’t the same man I once was. That I’d never be him again.
“Gideon,” she exhaled, swallowing hard. Then she removed her hand from my torso, bringing them both to my face. Her hold on me was unyielding as she crushed her mouth against mine, pouring every emotion she had into the kiss.
This was one of the things I loved about Imogene, why I fell for her so hard and fast all those years ago. She was incredibly empathetic, something I constantly cited to her as proof that she wasn’t, and never could be, like her father. When someone felt pain, she did, too.
And when I felt the warmth of her tears dotting my cheeks, every reason for not allowing her to see these scars vanished. It was entirely possible I’d regret this later, but right now, right here, I was desperate to experience the human connection I’d been deprived of for years.
With slow motions, I unfastened each of the buttons on my shirt, allowing it to fall to the floor, revealing the physical reminders of the brutality I’d endured.
Imogene gradually pulled out of the kiss, but didn’t look away from my eyes. Not yet. Instead, she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me against her, chest to chest.
I squeezed my eyes shut, relishing in the warmth of her skin against mine as her hands roamed over me. Each touch sent a mixture of desire and longing through me, emotion welling in my throat.
“Was this because of the car accident, too?” she asked softly, as she brushed the flesh along my bicep.
“Broken glass.”
She pressed a soft kiss to the angry scar.
“And here?” She caressed a patch of reddened skin along my collarbone.
“Burn marks.”
Without a hint of disgust or hesitation, she peppered several affectionate kisses from one side of my collarbone to the other before meeting my eyes once more. Then her attention dropped to one of the most prominent scars on my body.
“And here?” She swallowed hard, her fingers stopping along the jagged line stretching from just below my ribcage to my hipbone. “Still the car accident?”
I nodded. “Puncture wounds.”
I’d practiced this story so many times, yet the words felt wrong as they left my mouth. But what could I tell her?
That most of these scars were the result of four years’ worth of beatings, torture, and death match fights in the underground prison I’d found myself in after the man who I thought was a Good Samaritan turned out to be anything but.
That the scar on my arm was from cutting off the number branded on me with the first sharp object I found upon escaping.
That the marred flesh by my clavicle was from being burned with a blow torch.
That the jagged scar along my hipbone was a result of subpar medical care I endured to heal the gunshot wound I suffered when my best friend decided he wanted me dead.
I doubted she’d believe me.
Most days,Ididn’t even believe me.
