AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t do what again?” With great effort, he managed to keep his inflection flat.
“Hold me down. Don’t … force …”
“I would never force you,” he interrupted, his words cold despite the heat in his body.
She blinked, and now he could see the moistness of salty tears brimming in her lashes. Reality was breaking through the cobweb of fear and memory. She was here with Layth. She was safe. “I know.” She swallowed again. “I … Just … don’t.”
“I have held your wrists before when we’ve made love.”
“Not … like that.” His passion; his need. It had overwhelmed him, and it had terrified her. Only none of that was his fault. It was hers. Her stupid baggage that she lugged around everywhere she went.
She looked at the familiar surroundings of her bedroom, waiting for the sense of panic to pass.
It wasn’t that he’d held her wrists. It was the way he’d parted her thighs while holding her trapped; the way he’d pushed into her so fast.
She made a sound of nauseated panic and stood up, pacing away from him. “I need to shower.”
Actually, she thought she needed to vomit.
But Layth was not, in a million years, capable of letting this pass without an explanation.
“You must tell me what has happened.”
She shook her head.
“After what we’ve shared, you don’t think you owe me that courtesy?”
Her look was one of such tortured apology that he groaned inwardly. He was handling this all wrong, but he was at a loss. What had set her off? What had happened?
“I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s me.” She bit down on her lip, her eyes dropping away from him. “I … I have control issues with sex. That’s all.”
And fragments of their time together began to form a clearer image in his mind. Even the way she treated sex as being as of little importance as a handshake. It was as though she didn’t want to believe sex had any meaning, because there would be a flipside of that realisation for her.
“Who hurt you.”
Another statement where a question would have been more appropriate.
But how could she deny it?
Cassie had spent her adult life keeping this secret. Only Melinda knew a hint of the truth. Not even Aunt Jude had a full understanding of the details.
“You have been hurt by a man sexually.”
It physically wounded him to say it. Not because he judged her, or thought less of her, but because he was experiencing the grip of violent rage towards any man who could have done something like this to Cassie.
What good could come from denying it? She nodded finally and swallowed. “But a long time ago, and I don’t want to dredge it up now. Please, just let me shower.”
He wrapped his arms around her gently and held her fragile figure to his chest. “A shower isn’t going to wash this away.” He kissed her forehead and ran his hands comfortingly down her back.
“I know. Nothing will. Ever. This is my life, and I have to live with it.”
He held her for a long time. So long that he thought she had moved on. That she’d closed back up, glued over the gaping wound so that he would never be able to peel it open again.
But she opened her mouth, finally, her ear pressed to his chest. “I hate that this happened to me.”
“Which makes two of us.” Gently, gently, he reminded himself. “Did you tell anyone at the time?”
She nodded. “My mother.” The word was spat from her lips like a satisfying curse.
