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But the way Marino had treated her was callous and heartless.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life isn’t always fair,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Was it fair that your mother died when you were all so young? Was it fair that you had to struggle financially to raise your siblings and essentially lose your own childhood? Was it fair that you couldn’t chase your dreams as an adult?”
“That’s different. None of us were physically hurt.”
“Sometimes the other stuff is worse than the physical pain,” she said wisely. “It lasts a hell of a lot longer.”
She was right. I knew she was. “Why didn’t you tell me that you suffered from PTSD before? What are your triggers?”
After getting her off in the hot tub, watching the beauty of her face as she reached her climax, leaving her alone in her bed had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done. But I hadn’t known what to do. I didn’t want to screw up the progress we’d already made.
Over the last few days, I’d been studying PTSD, and I still didn’t know what scared her.
Of course, she wasn’t easy to read, since she buried her emotions.
She was different from the girl I knew so long ago, yet some things remained the same.
Like the way she tangled my dick up in knots.
“I’m better,” she murmured against my shoulder. “I went through counseling, and I worked on the issues myself. I didn’t want to have a million little triggers. It wasn’t healthy, especially for Maya.”
“This isn’t about Maya. This is about you. What scares you, sweetheart?” Jesus! I really wanted to know.
“Not much triggers my reactions anymore. Really. I’m okay.”
So she was going to blow it off?
“If I can’t touch you without you having flashbacks, you’re not okay.”
“You’re touching me now,” she pointed out in a soft voice.
“You know what I mean.” Hell, I didn’t want to sound like a dick, but I wanted so much more information than she apparently wanted to give up.
“If something bothers me, I’ll always tell you from now on.”
“You better,” I warned.
It was so damn hard to be pissed off at her. She’d been through hell, and the last thing she needed was for me to push her.
“Maybe we should just have sex,” she whispered. “Maybe it would help.”
Shock kept me silent. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“You think that’s the answer?” I said, my voice sounding raw.
No way was I ever going to say no to her offer. I couldn’t. I wanted her too damn much. But I wasn’t sure this was the way it should happen.
“Marry me and we’ll have as much sex as you want. Any way you want,” I offered.
I was grateful when Xander floated into another ballad so I could keep Skye exactly where she was. But I was holding my breath, just waiting for her answer.
I was done denying that I didn’t want this marriage for myself. That I wanted it for Maya. I wanted the woman in my arms more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my life. Selfishly. Just because I needed her to be mine.
It wasn’t for my daughter, although it would be nice if we could be a real family.
I wanted Skye.
Period.
“Sex first,” she murmured. “What if I can’t do it? And I already told you that I don’t want to be married again.”
“You weren’t married the first time. Not a real marriage, anyway.”
Skye hadn’t had a marriage. She’d been a jailed detainee.
“I need to be whole again, Aiden. I don’t know what I’ll want after that, but I need to be completely free of my past.”
The longing in her voice made me cave in. I couldn’t force this woman to do something she couldn’t do with her whole heart. It wouldn’t be fair.
“Then I’ll take the sex. For now,” I grumbled.
“What if I can’t—”
“You can,” I interrupted. “You just need the good experiences to outweigh the bad.”
“How do we do it?”
I smirked into her hair. “I don’t think you need me to teach you that.”
“Actually, I do. We were only together a couple of times, and everything after that was bad.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Nine years ago, I hadn’t really had the chance to romance Skye, and I regretted that. She’d deserved more. But I was determined to make up for every fast screw I’d ever given her when we were young.
She sighed. “I had your child. And I was married for years. And I still feel like I don’t know much of anything.”
My cock was so hard that it was physically painful. “You have a very willing teacher,” I assured her. “But let’s figure out your trigger stuff first, and not just with the intimacy issue.”
“I’ve never quite figured out how to not be afraid all the time,” she confessed. “I’ve just learned not to let it show.”
Hell, she might as well have knifed me in the chest. That’s how goddamn bad it hurt to hear that it was hard for her to ever really relax her guard.
“Why?”
“Because there wasn’t a single minute of my marriage that I wasn’t afraid that Marco would figure out what was happening and snuff me out.”
From what she’d said, Skye had tried to be a model wife. Why would Marino want her dead? “What did you do except try to please him?”
She lifted her head and looked around. There wasn’t another couple close to us, but I had a feeling she didn’t want anyone to hear our conversation.
“I did plenty that would make him kill me in a heartbeat,” she said breathlessly.
I couldn’t imagine what a woman like Skye could do to any guy that would make him want her to disappear. Fuck knew I couldn’t comprehend that. I never wanted her out of my sight.
“Like what?”
She was silent as she laid her head back down on my shoulder, her mouth as close to my ear as she could get it. “I wasn’t just docile and obedient during my marriage,” she admitted.
“So you fought him?”
“In the only way I could. Aiden, I figured out what was happening in the family right after Maya’s first birthday. And once I knew, I couldn’t stay silent.”
Holy shit! “You confronted him?”
“Worse.”
I shuddered at the thought of her risking her life by telling her ex-husband that she knew he was into organized crime. “What the hell could be worse than that?”
“Once I knew, I couldn’t just let it happen. I went to the police. They sent me to the FBI because they were federal crimes. I was an informant for several years. I’m the reason that the Marino crime family all ended up in jail for life. And I spent every minute of the day terrified that they’d find out. Once the FBI promised me that if anything ever happened or if I was compromised they’d make sure Maya was safe, I started telling them everything I knew or could find out.”
The truth finally slammed me over the head with a sledgehammer.
Holy fuck!
