Page 29 of Rescuing Sadie

“Even though I knew Jonathan was just as bad as his father, I wasn’t really scared of him. I thought Milena was the one in danger, not me. When he kidnapped us, I honestly wasn’t too worried. I mean, I was, but not for me. So when Jonathan dragged me away, it shocked me. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. It was so unreal when he started telling me what he wanted to do with me. That he wanted me as a breeder to give him baby girls he could molest to his heart’s content.

“That nearly broke me. I could handle almost anything he did to me, but the thought of him taking my child and hurting her… It made me crazy. So, after he dragged me into a bedroom, and before he knocked me out, I…I let him touch me. He lifted my shirt and grabbed my boobs. He told me how ugly I was, and how fucking me would hurt both me and him. But the end result would be worth it.”

Sadie looked up at him then, the pain, embarrassment, and shame shining bright in her eyes. “He hurt me, Chase. Twisted my nipples, squeezed my boobs, even put his hand on my throat to hold me down when I started to resist what he was doing. Said that he liked how easily he could mark my pale skin. That maybe he could learn to like fucking an older woman. He said he could hurt me more than he could the girls. That I could take more than they could. I…I didn’t want to do it…but I knew I needed to stall him. Knew Milena’s boyfriend would eventually come for her…so I had to do whatever I could to make sure he was distracted.”

When she didn’t continue, Chase pulled her on top of him, not wanting to trap her underneath him if she’d been raped by the bastard, and asked, “What, Sparky? What’d you do? Say it once, then we don’t have to ever talk about it again.”

Sadie closed her eyes and her breathing sped up. Chase recognized her reaction as a fight-or-flight response. He smoothed his hands over her skin lightly, not pressuring her to continue and not holding her against her will.

Finally, she said, “I pretended to orgasm while he was hurting me. I threw my head back and gave the performance of my life. Except the tears coming from my eyes weren’t from ecstasy, but pain. And he bought it, hook, line, and sinker. I thought he was going to rip my pants off after I finished moaning and shaking like a porn star, but his touch gentled instead. He petted me for several minutes while I pretended to come down from my orgasmic high. Then he turned my head and made me kiss him. For a long time. I was still crying and shaking from the pain in my chest—but I made out with him. Kissed him as if I couldn’t get enough, all the while trying not to gag. Then he reached for my hand and cuffed it to the bed. He sneered at me and said he knew I was a whore all along, just like all women were, and that he was going to enjoy hurting me in the future, but he was going to plant his seed inside me right then and there.”

Sadie took a deep breath, then said, “But before he could do anything, his phone beeped with a text. I don’t know who it was, maybe Jeremiah, but he knocked me out at that point. When I came to again, he dragged me out of that room down to another, where I saw Milena and her son. Jeremiah was holding JT, and he and Jonathan said goodbye to each other. Then Jonathan brought me back to the bedroom. He kissed me again, and I thought if I kissed him back, if I was docile, maybe I’d find a chance to get away. But he smiled at me. An evil, awful smile that made me want to puke. He told me he wanted to finish what he’d started earlier. He cuffed one of my wrists again then leaned over to grab something from a drawer in the table next to the bed.

“The thought of what he might have done to others on that same bed…of what he wanted to do to me…made me so angry! My foot was moving before I’d even thought about it. I kicked him with all my strength and he smashed his head on the table and fell over like a dead tree in the forest.”

She closed her eyes then finished quickly. “I ripped off the Velcro cuff on my wrist. I didn’t wait around to see if Jonathan was coming for me or not, I just ran out of there.”

“You amaze me,” Chase told her softly.

She shook her head. “I kissed him, Chase. I willingly let him touch me.”

“Bullshit,” he refuted. “You said it yourself, you were giving help time to get there. Giving me time to get to you. You were selfless and brave. You did what you had to do.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if I’d slept with him. If he got me pregnant.”

“Wrong,” Chase said in a harsh voice. “Even if you didn’t fight him, it still would’ve been rape. He was in the wrong, Sadie, not you. But you should know, even if he did take you, with or without your consent, even if you were pregnant as a result, it wouldn’t change how I feel. Not one fucking bit. You’re mine, Sadie Jennings. And any child you might’ve had as a result of that night would’ve been mine. Ours. Sparky, I don’t care if you’ve slept with one man or a hundred. From this point on, you’re mine. No one else exists for me.”

“You can’t really think that,” Sadie argued. “All guys care how many men a woman has been with. Especially when one of those men could’ve been Jonathan.”

“Would you think less of me if I told you I’d been with a hundred women? That I’ve had girlfriends since I was fifteen?”

“Well…no.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a guy. It’s different.”

“No. It’s not different at all. It’s fucking society that’s convinced women it’s okay if a man sleeps around and doesn’t care about his virtue. It makes him a stud. But a woman has to guard her virginity like it’s the eighteenth century, otherwise she’s a slut and a whore.”

Sadie stared at him with wide eyes. He saw the moment his point sank home.

“I see you’re getting it. Look, we all have pasts. Good, bad, and ugly. There are things I wish I’d done differently growing up, but I can’t change any of it. All I can do is go forward. But you making a conscious decision to do what you needed to in order to buy yourself and Milena some time isn’t something you should ever be ashamed of.”

She dropped her head and it thumped down onto his shoulder. She scrunched her arms under her and laid her palms flat on his chest. Her legs separated and she straddled his hips, drawing her knees up next to his body. Chase folded his arms around her.

Several minutes passed and neither said a word. They just enjoyed being close to one another.

Finally, Sadie lifted her head. “He hurt me, and I was afraid it would be a really long time before I wanted to be with someone else. Or even wanted to be around men in general. But from the second I saw you, I knew you were different.”

“I am different,” Chase said immediately.

She grinned, and he was so relieved he would’ve given her the moon if only she’d keep smiling at him like that. “You’re mine.”

“Yeah, Sparky, I am. And I hope you already know this, but I won’t ever hurt you like that asshole did. Not ever.”

“I know. I wouldn’t be here if I thought different.”

“So is that why you think Jonathan wants you so badly?” Chase asked, wanting to get the subject completely done with before they moved on. “Because you bested him?”