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I lift my head and grin at Trevor, “Good. Because it won’t change. Anyone who tries to take you from me will die a brutal death.”
EPILOGUE ONE: MAX AND WILLOW
Six Weeks Later…
Max
It’s been a long, hard six weeks. My wife has barely let me touch her. She still sleeps in the same bed as I do, but she sticks to the edge to keep away from me. If she moved any closer to the edge, she’d be on the floor. I’m trying to be the man she needs me to be, but not being allowed to touch her is slowly killing me. It’s not only the lack of sex. She’s distant. I want to hold my fucking wife and show her nothing has changed for me. Lately, Willow is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Willow has been through hell. She was abused sexually by several men starting from the age of five. She made it out of that, appearing unscathed. However, this is different. Something broke inside her when Joey raped her, and I don’t know how to fix it. Willow is not the woman she was a month and a half ago. I haven’t seen a smile since I found her. Mia coming over is the only time she even comes close. Even then, though, she sits stoically like a statue—a broken piece of stone, a casualty of war.
“Sweetheart,” I say as I approach her, sitting on the couch, a cup of coffee in her hand as she stares at the liquid like it has answers to her troubles.
“Sweetheart,” I repeat.
When she still doesn’t respond, I remove the coffee cup from her hands and set it on the coffee table behind me, “Willow,” I drop to my knees in front of her, but she keeps her gaze on her lap.
“Look at me,” she shakes her head no.
My heart feels like it’s being ripped open, “Do you not want this anymore? Do you not love me?”
Finally, her head snaps up, her eyes connecting with mine, “What?”
“It’s okay for you to not be okay after what happened. But you’ve shut me out completely, Sweetheart. You don’t talk to me at all. You won’t look at me. I’m not allowed to touch you.”
Her eyes drop back to her lap as tears roll down her cheeks, “I don’t deserve your comfort, Max.”
“Of course you do.”
I stay kneeling in front of her, but I’m careful not to make physical contact with her even though that’s all I want to do.
She shakes her head, “I vowed to never be with another. Til death do us part. I don’t deserve any of this.”
Willow waves her hand around toward the photo on the wall of us with our two children.
“Is that what you tell the rape victims you work with? It’s their fault they got raped so they don’t deserve anything good in life?”
She glares at me, “Don’t be absurd.”
“Ditto, Sweetheart. What happened is not your fault. You did not consent to it. I know without a doubt if he hadn’t forced you, it would not have happened. It’s not your fault Willow.”
She swipes the tears from her cheeks angrily, “Miraculously, you were the first man I had intercourse with. Now, you’re not. It feels like I’ve lost everything.”
I lay my head on her lap, “I’m still the first and only man you’ve given yourself to freely. That means more than who you’ve had intercourse with. He forced you, you come to me willingly. I’ll still be the only man you’ll have inside you for the rest of your life. He’s dead. Don’t let him win by destroying what we have.”
She runs her fingers through my hair, causing me to moan. After six weeks, her touch feels like heaven.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Do not apologize for anything, Sweetheart.”
I get off the floor and sit on the couch beside her, and she runs her fingers down my chest as she gazes into my eyes, “Max, touch me.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods, “Please Max.”
I run my hand up her bare arm, to her collarbone and neck, then into her beautiful, long dark hair, “I missed this, Sweetheart.”
Her eyes close as she moans my name, and my cock swells. I want to fuck my wife so badly it physically hurts, but I won’t. I’ll take things at her speed, letting her set the pace.
