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Dante and I finally stop in front of our secluded cabin. We’ve been winding around the hills and mountains of Colorado for what seems like forever, but we’ve finally made it to our destination. The website said this place has the best views of Bear Lake, and I can confirm.
It’s absolutely breathtaking. The photos online didn’t do it justice.
We get out of the car, and Dante grabs our luggage. We make it up to the entryway, and I enter the code we were given on the keypad and open our door.
The cabin is small and intimate, but it feels homey in a way I’ve been longing for. The rooms are small and filled with random items—bookshelves and art on the walls, guitars lined up on the floor, records in a bin next to an old-time record player.
Dante comes up to me and wraps his hands around my waist as he kisses my forehead.
And then my nose.
And finally, my lips.
More than any other place I could ever find, this man has become home to me.
“You know,” I say. “I’m kind of proud of us for how close we’ve become since everything happened. We definitely didn’t start off with intentions on getting deep with each other, but now?” I smile. “Now I feel like I really know you. I feel like people usually get to know each other before fucking and murdering and running from the cartel.”
Dante nods, his scar from the showdown with the cartel catching my eye. I run my finger over it, tracing the line on his neck that runs vertically.
“Are you telling me we did things backward, angel?”
He’s hit the nail on the damn head.
We move over to the four-poster bed that overlooks the lake and surrounding spruce trees, and I can’t help but marvel at the reflection of the sunset on the water. The reds and yellows and oranges bleed together, using the water as their canvas, and for a moment, I can’t peel my eyes away.
“This place is the most beautiful spot in the world,” I say to him, and then remember his question. “And yes. I think it’s kind of strange, don’t you? How we were so lost in each other in the beginning. But it was this pure, untamed, lust-filled attraction that was sexually motivated.”
I stop to ponder for a moment, to reflect on those first few days.
Dante sits up, and we sit facing each other on the bed. His legs encircle me, and I sit with mine overlapping his. I move my hands to his thighs and take a deep breath as he cups my face with his palms.
“But now? Now it’s like everything needs to be rewritten.”
I haven’t been able to have sex with Dante since Martínez raped me. I haven’t been able to even think about sex or want it or crave it… The desire is gone.
I know it’ll come back eventually, and he’s assured me he’s here and not going to rush anything.
And God, I love him.
I think I knew before we declared our love after I was shot. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I realized I love Dante… It’s like I always have.
It’s fast, but that’s what it is—love. So fucking unconventional and definitely not how I pictured falling in love for the first time, but in a fucked-up way, I wouldn’t change it.
Most of it, anyway.
Because what Martínez did has left this looming shadow over me.
I feel so horrified and disgusted and ashamed that I haven’t even been able to talk about it in therapy yet. Haven’t even said the words out loud, but they replay in my mind constantly.
I was raped.
I was raped.
I was raped.
The very thing that I decided was mine, my body, my decision. It was still stolen—just in a different way—by a man who was completely unworthy.
What Martínez did left a hole inside me that was much bigger than the bullet wound I suffered. And I can already tell the scar will be deeper, too.
