“I was walking to the bus stop,” she whispered.
“The bus? You were taking the bus at night?” he yelled, turning her to face him. He tilted her face up, his hand gentle, his eyes raging.
Laken bit her lip. “I didn’t have money for a taxi.”
Duncan swore under his breath. “What about the emergency money I gave you?”
She frowned. “But that was your money.”
“I gave it to you to use if you ever needed it.”
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t really ever figure on using it unless you had an emergency and needed something.”
“Jesus, Laken. The bus? Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?”
“Yeah,” she told him. “I do.”
“Oh God.” Horror filled his face. “What happened?”
“I never made it to the bus. I was attacked.”
“Oh fuck… fuck, baby, I’m going to lift you back onto my lap now.” There was pain in his voice and when she glanced up, she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek as he lifted her, settling her on his lap.
“Can you tell me what happened?” He forced himself to phrase it as a question even though he wanted to demand she tell him everything.
“I tripped and someone grabbed me, dragged me into an alley. He must have followed me from the club. Seems he didn’t like BDSM and he thought I was a dirty slut for participating. I don’t know how long he was watching me for.” She shuddered.
“What happened? What did he do to you?”
She bit her lip. “He hurt me. Hit me. I have a few scars from where he cut me. But even worse was the way he spoke to me, like I was dirty and wicked. I escaped him, though,” she said with satisfaction. “I kicked him in the balls and while he was on the ground I knocked him out and ran.”
“That’s my girl,” he told her and she sent him a small smile.
“How did he hurt you? What did he do?”
“I don’t like to think about it.” She looked up at him with large, bruised eyes. He needed her to talk to him about this, needed to know what triggers she had, but it didn’t have to be tonight. Now that she’d opened up to him, they could work through the rest.
“It’s not that I thought you were him or that I’m afraid of you. I’m not. I’m not scared of sex or being touched. I’ve been to therapy and I’ve worked through my issues around being intimate. I never freaked out on Ricky. But Ricky and I, well, the sex was very vanilla. I was always scared that I’d freak out. And hey, clever me, I was right.” She laughed but it wasn’t pleasant sounding.
“Hush, sugar. You had every reason to panic. I set off a trigger. I knew you had reservations about playing and instead of talking those through with you first, I dove right in.” She heard the recrimination in his voice. This wasn’t his fault. None of it. Which is why she’d deliberately glossed over what had happened. She knew he would feel guilty about what happened to her. There was no reason to compound that guilt with horrible details she didn’t want to think about.
“I’m not sure why I panicked so much, though. I know you won’t hurt me. My emotions were running high and I haven’t been sleeping that well, not since that bitch tried to hurt Lila.”
Even though it had been Lila in danger, Laken had felt so helpless, so powerless. Just as she’d felt three years ago.
“I think what happened to Lila brought everything back to me. I mean, it wasn’t the same, but it was my fault that Lila was nearly killed, just like it was my fault that I...” her voice trailed off.
“That was not your fault,” he told her fiercely. He clasped her face in his hands. “Neither was what happened to Lila.”
She knew he spoke the truth, but that didn’t help her feelings of guilt.
“Please tell me that the cops got him,” he said.
“No, afraid not.”
“Motherfucking son of a goat. Inbreed, ass-wipe son of a bitch.” Laken listened on in growing surprise as he spewed out insult after insult.
Finally, he calmed down and just held her tight. “Come on, sugar. Let’s go home.”