How could she admit to the lie she’d told him?
“Sweetheart? Did I hurt you? God, if I did…”
“No! Oh, no, Damian, you didn’t hurt me.” Ivy took his hand, brought it to her mouth and kissed it. “What we did—”
“Making love.”
“Yes. It was wonderful.”
He held her against him for a long moment. Then he cupped her face and tilted it to his.
“I’m sorry I frightened you before.”
“It wasn’t your fault. I was—I was dreaming. And then I heard the thunder and I saw the lightning and—”
“And, you thought I was someone else. Someone who’d hurt you.”
She couldn’t lie, not when his arms were around her. “Yes.”
Rage swept over him. Her whisper only confirmed what he’d already suspected.
“A man.”
Ivy buried her face against his throat.
“Who?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Yes, but he did. He wanted a name. He wanted to find this faceless son of a bitch and kill him.
Ah, God, Ivy was trembling and he knew damned well it had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. Damian cursed himself for being an ass.
“Forgive me, sweetheart.” He kissed her hair, her temple, her mouth. “I’m a fool to talk about these things at a time like this.”
“You’re not a fool,” she said fiercely, looking into his eyes. “You’re a good, kind, wonderful man.”
He forced a smile to his face. “That’s quite an improvement over being—let’s see. An SOB, an arrogant bastard, a son of—”
She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. “Well, sometimes…No. Seriously you’re not any of those things I called you.”
His hand moved slowly down her spine, cupped her bottom, drew her more closely against him.
“We didn’t know each other,” he said softly. “And it’s my fault. I stormed into your life—”
“Seems to me I was the one who did the storming.”
Good. She was smiling. He hadn’t spoiled this amazing night for her after all.
No more questions…for now. But he would ask them again. A monster had done something terrible to Ivy.
Something sexual. Something violent.
Had he been caught? Had he paid for what he’d done? Not that it mattered. He would find the man and deal with him in his own way…
“Damian?”
He blinked. “Yes?”