Page 53 of Ravaged With You

“Her name is Marjorie. She runs an escort service. And yes, she was going to arrange a girl for me.”

He didn’t see the slap coming. He only felt it the sting on his cheek. She took a step back, breathing hard.

He stepped closer. “I’d be careful if I were you. I’m not myself right now.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not the truth. I am myself right now. That’s the goddamn problem.”

“Bullshit. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I do know you’re running away. You’re running away from me to go pay someone to fuck you. Why?”

He could hear the hurt in her voice, and his heart twisted.

“Dammit, Jo. It’s a transaction, not a relationship. I don’t have to worry what they think of either me or what I need. I pay the money, I get whatever I ask. Is that what you want to hear?”

He expected her to cringe away in disgust. Instead, she tilted her head back and met his eyes, hers just as cold and hard as he was certain his were. “Yes. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“Well, then you’ve heard. And now you know.” He started to push past her out of the room, but she grabbed his arm.

“Why?” Her voice was soft now, almost tentative. “Why them and not me?”

The words ricocheted through him. Why indeed? Because wasn’t that what he really wanted? To pull her into his arms. To wrap her in his embrace. To draw her close and slowly strip her from her clothes. To trail kisses over her skin. To taste her and touch her.

Yes, dear God, yes. But he wanted so much more than that, too. Needed so much more.

Raw, hard things. He wanted—no, he needed—to burn what was raging inside of him out of him. And he wanted it to be Jo who stoked that fire.

He would never do that to her.

Instead, he cupped her cheek and said, “I love you Jo. But you know what the song says. You can’t always get what you want.”

Chapter Sixteen

I didn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch, but I must have, because I’m awakened when Red presses his hand to my shoulder. The room is entirely dark now, and I have no sense of time.

He sits on the edge of the sofa, his hip brushing against my torso. I stretch and curl onto my side, squishing my back against the cushions to give him more room.

“Are you okay?” I ask. He’s looking at me so strangely, as if he’s never seen me before.

“I’m sorry.”

I wait, but he doesn’t say anything else. “It’s okay,” I say. “I didn’t have any right to interrupt or to make you feel bad or for any of it, honestly.” I don’t understand what he’s battling, but I know it’s something, and I hate the thought that I made it worse for him. “I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

He’s shaking his head as I talk. Now I reach out and put my hand on his knee.

“No. I mean it. I’m not in your head, but I know that whatever’s there is dark. I don’t understand why. But I shouldn’t have burst in like that and started railing on you.”

He drops his head, so I have no view of his face. But when he finally tilts it back up again and looks me in the eyes, I can see the intensity reflected there. The flashes of emotion that catch in the dim ambient light peeking in around the curtains.

I stay still and silent, waiting for him to speak. Even Rambo, curled up near my feet, hasn’t moved, as if he knows that anything out of the ordinary might shift Red offtrack, might keep him from saying whatever it is he’s come out here to say.

And so I wait, almost waiting until I think he’s not going to say anything at all. Then I hear his voice, so low and gravelly that I almost don’t recognize it. “It was almost a year,” he says. “Almost a year that I was there, trapped and tortured. A hostage.”

My body goes completely cold, and I have to physically tense my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. I open my mouth, but I don’t know what I’m going to say, and I’m relieved when he continues.

“I remember all of it. Not just in my mind, I remember it in my blood. I remember it in my soul. They changed me. She changed me. She twisted me around, and even though I won in the end, I didn’t really. Because they broke me, Jo. They completely shattered me. They ravaged my soul like wolves, and there’s no way I can ever put it back together again.”

I can’t help it. I have to touch him, even at the risk of him pulling back. And so I slowly reach out and press my hand gently over his. For a moment he says nothing, and I fear I’ve made a mistake. Then he says, “I get flashbacks. I have dreams. What I don’t have anymore are relationships. She—they—twisted sex around. They made it something hard and desperate, but damned if I don’t need it. The release. The tension. That edge of control. I need it. I just need.”

“I don’t understand.”

He shakes his head. “Maybe I don’t either. They turned sex into a battle. A fight, and if I’m not in control—I have to be in control— then the dark rises. The terror that I might lose myself again. And I can’t go there. I can’t risk it. I can’t do it.”