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“When he hit me, I didn’t fight back. When he stripped me, I didn’t fight back.” Her voice grew in volume, strengthened with a loathing he understood all too well. “I didn’t fight back. I’m a fucking Domme, and I didn’t stand up for myself. I took the hits, I took his taunts, and I can’t even tell you if I’d have tried to defend myself if he’d raped me. I was blank, Thane. I was nothing, just like I was when Evan tortured me.”
Another link snapped. “What do you think would have happened if you’d hit him, Connie? No, not the outcome you’ve replayed over and over in your head, the one where you kicked his ass into shreds and stood with your heel planted on his throat. The real outcome.”
Those damned gray eyes of hers fired with fury. “We’ll never know, will we?”
The last link pinged free. Mindless of his shoulder, Thane lunged forward, exchanging his grip on her hand to hooking his arm around her waist. As his wound bellowed in protest, he hauled her onto his lap, pressing her back against the padding of the couch so he could keep her pinned. “Oh yeah, we both know exactly how things would’ve played out. You’re not stupid, Connie, you’re in denial.”
“Don’t tell me what I am, asshole!”
Oh, that was a sore spot, right there. Ruthlessly, he dug his fingers into the tender wound and proceeded to lance the emotional abscess beneath it. “So far in denial, you can’t even admit the truth.”
“Shut up!”
“He’d have hit you back.”
She struck him, her fist bouncing off his uninjured shoulder with force. “Thane!”
“He’d have broken bones,” he continued, unfazed by the violence. “He’d have shattered you into pieces, and that would’ve only been the start.”
Connie hit him again, lower this time. “Stop it!”
“A prison-fit, military-trained man who outweighed you by fifty pounds or more. It would have been child’s play to crush you, and he was the type of guy to enjoy your pain. He wouldn’t have stopped there. Why would anyone stop there if they have a vulnerable, broken woman spread out naked on the floor?”
She screamed, battering at him now.
Thane gentled his voice. “Guthrie would have retaliated in ways you can’t imagine, Connie. He’d have broken you, raped you, taken everything from you before he put a bullet in your head, and I would have lost you. Losing you means losing myself.” He waited until her fists began to slow, the hard hits becoming sluggish. “I know you’re hurting, Connie. I feel how scared you are. How angry you are for not doing more to protect yourself. But you did the only thing you could, the smart thing.”
“I didn’t help you,” she whispered mournfully.
“Connie.” He sighed her name, pulling her in close. “If things had gone south and I’d died, trust me, the only thing I’d have been concerned about was you. I expect you to do everything and anything in your power to stay alive, and if that means you leave me to bleed out, you damn well do it, because if you’re not here to keep me on my toes, I don’t want to be here at all.”
Her fingers clutched at his shirt. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Bullshit. We deserve each other, and we’ve gone through enough shit to prove it.” He grasped her nape with enough pressure for his fingertips to bite into the soft flesh. “This is beyond what either of us can deal with alone. I think, even working together, we’ll struggle. So, you and me, we’re going to be brave, and we’re going to ask for help.”
“Therapy.”
“Yes.”
“What if I say no?”
Thane smiled sadly and gave her neck a gentle squeeze. “You’re a psychologist, sugar. Deny it all you want, but you know this is the way forward. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, and that was fine by him. He took the time to just hold her, ignoring his throbbing shoulder, and thank God he had the opportunity to do so. Every word he’d told her about Guthrie was true—things could have been drastically worse.
With her fingers kneading his chest, he closed his eyes and began to plan.
*
When her parents died, Connie was only twenty. The news of their demise, caused by a carbon monoxide leak from a faulty heater, had shaken her down to the roots. She’d been lost and alone, fighting with her grief as she struggled to balance her world. It had taken a long time before she stood tall again, ready to tackle an existence where she couldn’t just pick up the phone and call her mom for advice.
She’d taught herself how to do the jobs her father had taken care of, and found pride in being self-sufficient.
While she adapted, she’d finally become happy with who she was growing to be.
And then, she’d been lured into Evan’s trap. Following his charms like they were little candy treats scattered in a line toward his deadly gingerbread house, ready to devour unsuspecting visitors.
She hadn’t been this ruined since her ex-dom decided torture was an excellent breakup technique. Only this time, she wasn’t alone to handle the fallout.
