He shook his head. “No, I owed some other guys the money. David bought the debt. When he found out what I did, he offered to clear it if I brought you back. You and the money you stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything.” Her pulse ran a little faster. Of all the things to be angry about, this was the one that riled her the most. David had taken away everything he could, but her integrity remained intact. To know he’d placed a great big question mark over it in the eyes of his friends made her blood boil.
Murphy’s voice was strained. “I know that now.”
She turned over, the bed creaking with the old springs groaning under their combined weight. “So what are you going to do?” Rachel wasn’t sure why she asked the question. Part of it was a niggling fear he could still take her back, maybe use her as collateral. But more than that, she didn’t want to see him get hurt.
“I’ll tell him you escaped. Try and find another way to work off the debt.” But Murphy didn’t sound convinced as he spoke the words.
“David doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way.”
“Tell me about him. What did he do to you?” His voice was full of emotion, and she wanted to bury herself in it.
She closed her eyes as she spoke. “I met David at a sex party. It was the first time I’d been to one. An ex had introduced me to rope play, so when I was invited, I was curious enough to go.” Behind her drawn lids she could picture the private club in downtown Boston, where she’d had to show three forms of ID before even being allowed inside. The whole place reeked of money and entitlement. “It was an exclusive club. I was only twenty-two and easily impressed. David was thirty-five, a rich lawyer with a thriving practice. As soon as I walked in, he made a beeline for me.”
“You liked him?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to remember. My early memories of him are so fucked up by the later ones that sometimes I don’t know what I thought. I let him fuck me over a whipping stool, and the following evening I went around to his house for dinner.”
“The one he still lives in?”
“Yes, he inherited it from his father. You can imagine how impressed I was, all that wealth tied up in bricks and mortar. I was barely out of school, up to my eyeballs in debt.” Just talking about those days made her want to throw up. “After we ate, he took me on a tour. His playroom was impressive. He had every whip, flail, flogger, and cane you could possibly want. From the moment I stepped in there, I was enthralled. It wasn’t difficult to follow his every command.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Rachel nodded. He was right. It sounded like a fairly normal relationship for a couple who enjoyed the same sexual preferences. That’s why she was a fool.
“Have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome?”
“Yeah?”
“I sometimes wonder if I had a bit of that going on. He didn’t start off heavy. At first we both liked the pain, the way the welts crisscrossed my skin like a checker board. Afterward I’d stare at them for hours, touching them to remember the agony.”
It was hard, admitting this. She felt like she had some culpability in the way it ended up. She should have known from the start he was a sadistic bastard.
“We both liked to play. For the first year it was good. I was still doing some studying, and he liked me being home when he finished work. Sometimes we’d go out and eat, other times we’d go straight to bed. We had fun, you know?”
“So what happened?” Murphy’s voice brought her back out of her thoughts.
“It wasn’t like one day he tied me up and left me for dead.” Her heart was starting to hammer in her chest, like the danger was still present. “It was a gradual thing, like that boiling frog story. The bastard knew exactly how far to push me every single time. And little by little, he took the power from me until my safe word meant nothing. He wasn’t a Dom, he was a sadist. A fucked up, messed-up-in-the-brain asshole.”
It felt good to say those words, to spit them out for the first time. She’d never vocalized her thoughts about him before—never had the opportunity to. Knowing Murphy believed her gave her hope.
“I think things got bad at work, or he got involved in something he shouldn’t have. He stopped taking me out for dinner and would hole himself up in the study instead. He sat in front of his computer for hours. When he came out, he’d be furious and expect me to do everything he demanded.” She cleared her throat. “The first time he didn’t stop when I used my safe word, he cried for an hour.”
Her lungs felt tight, like they were congested. It was becoming hard to get the words out. “We talked about it afterward and I forgave him. I said we could get over it, but we didn’t.” Getting over it was an understatement. Things had gotten so much worse after that first time, the pain almost unendurable. By the time Rachel realized things were out of her control, it was too late. She’d already become his victim.
&nbs
p; She curled up into a tight ball, like it would protect her from the memories. Talking about David for the first time in a year hadn’t done anything but make her anxious and fearful. Her heart raced at the thought of being made to see him again.
It would end her. Emotionally, she wouldn’t survive.
Murphy shifted in the bed, turning onto his side so he was facing her. She dragged her gaze down his smooth, rippled stomach.
His voice was low. “How did you get out?”
The need to have him close made her body ache. She moved toward him, wanting the protection of his warm skin against hers.