That had been the last time I’d lain beneath a man, powerless, broken, wanting to die as they took their turns.
I felt sick, fevered. My thoughts raced, and my eyes filled with tears. One by one, they ran down the sides of my face, uncontrollable. I wasn’t crying. My soul was weeping.
“Selena?” Brody’s quiet whisper couldn’t fully break through that crushing paralysis.
I struggled to breathe, to think, to speak.
Then cold touched my face, and I jerked. The damn wet cloth. Brody was using it to wipe the trails of my tears and then sliding it over my forehead and nose. My skin prickled with awareness when the damp material passed over.
Slowly, my mind unglued itself from the past.
See:Brody, the clock on the wall behind his head, the ceiling light, the ray of sunshine falling in a strip across the wall.
Hear:the white noise machine, Brody’s breath, the rustle of the bedspread.
Smell:him, all around me, all over me.
Feel:him again, surrounding me.
“Where have you gone, heathen?” Brody murmured, his gaze traveling over my face.
I took a deep breath, and then another, and slowly, my body unlocked.
There was not here. That place was gone, burned to the ground, and the earth salted in its wake. It only existed in my memory now. I didn’t have to go there, and no one could make me.
“I’m here. I just can’t breathe with your two hundred pounds on me,” I muttered.
A quick smile broke out over Brody’s face. “Try two-forty.”
“Exactly, now get off before you break me.” I shoved at his shoulders. Now that the danger of an annoying panic attack had passed, it felt far too comfortable here, beneath this man.
“Oh, Selena, what man could break you?” He moved off me.
I immediately missed his weight. There was something in his expression that made me feel proud, somehow, and stronger. As if this man really thought I couldn’t be broken.
He stood beside the bed, looking like a deity of some kind with his bare, inked chest and dark-brown waves hanging around his face. His PJ pants hung low on his hips, and one glance was all it took to confirm. Yep. The term “morning wood” was clearly invented to describe this man.
“You’d be surprised,” I muttered, looking at the ceiling, my cheeks hot. This was getting to be a problem. I was starting to melt at this man’s touch. The one man I had to stay away from. Well, there were two if you counted Cal. My stepbrothers. I’d be absolutely finished if my mother ever found out the kind of thoughts I was having about a certain Sinclair.
“Okay, I guess that’s enough exercise for today?” I attempted a fresh start and sat up, pushing myself off the opposite side of the bed. “It’s raining, too, so I guess no training.”
“Meet me in the gym in five minutes.” Brody turned toward the bathroom.
“Wait, the gym?” I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved that we’d still be working out.
“Yep, the gym. You don’t want to be broken? Time to get stronger, cheer captain.”
I was stretching in front of the mirrors when Brody came in. The gym was bright and airy, with high-set basement windows looking out at the back garden, where the sun had just risen.
“Good girl. Always stretch first.” He settled two water bottles down at the side of the room and approached me.
Good girl.I didn’t know why, but that phrase, said in his deep, accented voice, did something to me.
“I think I know a thing or two about stretching. I was a cheerleader, remember?”
He nodded and considered me, then tilted his head to the side. “That’s right. Let’s stretch each other, in that case. Go deeper.”
Something dark and warm burned in his eyes, and I tore mine from his gaze. I was going to be as red as a tomato if I wasn’t careful. I wasn’t an expert at blushing. I’d never had a lot of experience with it, but I was making up for it lately.
