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“You already asked me that,” I remind him.
“No, I asked you why you would risk your life. You established that you have an emotional connection to these girls you’ve never met before.” He pauses to take a sip from his drink. “What I am asking you now is why you have this connection?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I push the blanket off and go to stand, but his hand on my shoulder stops me, his eyes meeting mine.
“It matters.” He doesn’t elaborate.
I sigh and flop back on the sofa. On second thought, I down the rest of the wine and hold the glass out for him to refill. I’m pleasantly buzzed, enough to feel warm and relaxed.
“Once upon a time,” I start, and look to see if he’s rolling his eyes yet. He isn’t. Sean’s intense gaze is focused on me, like I’m the only interesting thing in the whole fucking universe.Shit. He actually wants to know.
I let out a sigh and rub my eyes. “Ok, look, this isn’t something I just talk about, ok?”
Sean nods.
“I grew up in this tiny little Texas town on a ranch with my mom, dad, and little sister. Nicole. I loved it there, but I wanted to be a journalist, and NYU is the place for that. I studied my ass off and had a scholarship too. My parents did not approve. First off, my mother thought it was a stupid career goal, and my dad thought it was too far away. Plus, Nicole was only two years younger and she was going to the college in Houston to study nursing. It was close enough she didn’t have to move out. So, anyway, fast forward a bunch. Nicole goes to this party with some shitty friends. They basically abandon her there.”
Fuck. Tasha is the only person I’ve ever told this to. I can feel the tears building and feel the burning in the back of my throat. My voice creaks a little when I start back up.
“Nicole got raped. It was bad. They didn’t drug her. She remembered everything. She called me from the hospital, and I was down there the next day. Took a train, a plane, and a bus but I was there. She was this amazing, kind, happy girl. But when I picked her up from the hospital, she was just not there anymore. After a few days, she was hiding it more, but I could still tell. Anyway, about a week later the sheriff sits the family down and tells us that between him and us, the Houston police aren’t going to do anything with her case. Apparently one of the guys was some bigwig’s kid and her rape kit had some mysterious chain of evidence problem and was now inadmissible.”
I feel the tears running down my cheeks now. I realize that sometime during my story Sean started rubbing soothing circles on my back.
“The next day, she didn’t come out to ride with me like we’d planned. I went into her bedroom and she was dead. There was a suicide note on the nightstand, right next to the fucking antibiotics she was still taking from the hospital. My bright, smart, happy, beautiful sister couldn’t live with the memory of what happened. Couldn’t deal with knowing that nothing would ever happen to them. It destroyed her, and losing her crushed our family. My parents blamed me. Apparently, if I’d gone to school in Houston, Nicole would have been with me that night instead. After the funeral, my mother slammed the door in my face and told me to get out of their lives. So I did.”
“Roxanne, you know that wasn’t your fault.” It’s really nice to hear someone say that. Remarkably nice.
“I know. I blamed myself for a long time too. Sometimes I still do, but not the same way. Cognitively, I know better. Emotionally, I deal with the ‘what ifs’ more than I’d like to some days.”
“So, these girls—” he starts. I cut him off.
“They are someone’s Nicole. One night destroyed my sister, and she was the strongest person I knew. These girls are living in hell. Day after day, and that’s if they physically survive the trip. And no one is going to do a fucking thing about it. Christ, the cops even punted it to organized crime, not even homicide.”
“So your story, what does that do?”
“It shines the fucking light on the monsters. It makes it harder for the piece of shit officials that are looking the other way to keep doing it. It brings the force of public outrage on it. Maybe it even gives closure to a family; at least they know what happened to their daughter.” I pause for a minute to take a calming breath. “Or maybe I’m delusional and none of that will happen. But at least someone gives a fuck.”
Sean pulls me into his lap and wraps his arms around me. He holds me like that for a while before kissing the top of my head and carrying me inside.
CHAPTER30
Sean
As I hold Roxanne in my arms, I realize I’m incredibly fucked. I’ve never met anyone like her, not even close. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met and tough as hell. Jesus fucking Christ, she fought off grown men and sassed them when she woke up zip tied on a goddamned floor. Seeing the pain in her eyes when she told me about her sister made me furious. I wanted to kill every single person who had ever harmed her and lay their bodies at her feet.
I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do with her, but I do know that I’m keeping her. I kiss the top of her soft hair and pick her up, carrying her to my bed. I have more guest rooms, but over my dead body does she sleep anywhere besides my bed. She wraps her arms around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder.
“Where are we going?” she asks. I can hear the fatigue in her voice. Between the adrenaline, the orgasms, the emotional mind fuck of spilling your soul to another human, and the several glasses of wine I encouraged to help her relax, I feel the tension slipping out of her body.
“To bed.”
I get a soft purr in response.
I push the door open and walk to the bed, setting her down in the middle. The soft glow of the city lights coming in through the windows highlights her pale skin against her dark hair. I pull her shirt off and thank god I didn’t give her a bra earlier. I gently push her back to the bed and peel her leggings down her body. I roll her over, arranging her long hair off of her back. I kiss the small of her back, just above her panties.
“Stay,” I tell her, and rise to get a bottle of lotion from the bathroom. She’s watching me intently as I return with it.
She looks at the lotion, looks at my face, looks at the lotion, looks at the outline of my swollen cock against my sweats, looks back at me. “Oh, no, you don’t.” Her eyes go wide. I realize what it must look like to her.
