She nodded.
“Laken, I just want you to know that you can tell me anything. I’m here for you. I want to help you.”
She shifted on his lap, wriggling off to sit on the bed beside him. He hugged her close to his side, waiting patiently.
“I glossed over everything because I didn’t want you to feel guilty for what happened. It was my fault. I was acting like a child looking for revenge. I know you—you take everything on yourself. You’re so protective that you would have seen it as your failing. But it was mine and it was his. Oh, was it his.”
She rubbed her hands together, looking slightly anxious. He covered her hands with his. God, if he allowed it, the guilt would eat them both alive. He couldn’t give into it. And he certainly wouldn’t let her blame herself.
“It was his fault. Not yours.”
“I shouldn’t have been out alone.”
“You were upset; you made an error of judgment. But what he did to you was not your fault.”
“He said it was,” she whispered. “He said it was my fault for being such a dirty little slut, for being unnatural. He said he had taken me so he could cure me. That for every dirty thought, every dirty act I had done, he would show me how wrong I was. He knocked me out and when I woke up I was in a basement. It was dark and cold. God, I was so cold. He stripped me naked and there was no heating.”
His poor baby felt the cold. God, he couldn’t stand the thought of her suffering, scared and needing him.
“I screamed for what seemed like ages. He tied my hands above my head, but used a rough rope so if I tried to get free my wrists would rub raw and bleed. The other end of the rope was tied to a hook on the ceiling and my feet were tied to some hooks on the floor. I could barely move.”
He brushed her hair off her face, unable to stop touching her. “You must have been terrified.”
“When he came in I was exhausted from the yelling and crying. Then he appeared, and this overwhelming terror just stole my voice. He opened up a chest and pulled out a flogger, but not a soft one— this had bits of metal in it. Then he would use a whip and some clamps. He made me hurt so bad. I begged him to let me go. I would have done anything, anything.”
She looked at him and the shame in her eyes had his stomach tying in knots. “Of course you would have,” he told her fiercely. “Because you wanted to live. No matter what, you always do what you need to in order to live, you hear me? Nothing else matters. Nothing you had to do to survive matters because you lived.”
Tears ran down her cheeks and he realized his own gaze was blurred with tears. He scooped her back onto his lap, needing to hold her.
“All the time he sounded so reasonable, you know? As blood dripped down my back from the flogger and then the whip, his voice was so… civilized… as he told me what a dirty slut I was, how nobody wanted a filthy whore, how no one was coming for me. That one really hurt because I knew it was true. Not that I didn’t have people who cared about me, but no one would be looking for me right then. He choked me a number of times.”
“What?”
“He choked me, just to show me how easily he could take my life. Sometimes I passed out, only to wake up in the nightmare once more. When I had to go to the bathroom, he escorted me over to this filthy toilet off in a tiny bathroom. He watched me the whole time. I was so weak; I didn’t think I would have a chance to ever escape.”
She took a shuddering breath, then another. “He’d put t-things in me. Vibrators, plugs… and force me to come as he hurt me. He hurt me even more when I did come, as though it were proof that I was all those things he said.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Where had he been? Cursing her for being childish. Throwing himself into his career. For what?
No, he had to stop this. No more guilt. He couldn’t change the past; he could only take care of the future.
“Then one time when I passed out, I woke up to find myself free. He let me go… but why? Why me?”
“I don’t know, sugar,” Duncan said. “But we’ll find out. We’ll find him.” Then he was a dead man.
God, he had fucked up and nearly lost her. Duncan didn’t try to stop the tears from drifting down his face; she deserved to see his pain, his regrets.
“Forgive me, baby.”
“There is nothing to forgive. I don’t want you to feel guilty, and I don’t want you to see me as a victim. That was three years ago. I’ve healed—well, mostly. Obviously I could never heal the fear of letting myself submit again, of letting someone tie me up and flog me, because I only ever wanted to do that with you. But I’m no longer the frightened girl I was. Don’t cast me as a victim.”
“You’re not a victim, baby. You’re a fighter. I want to fight with you. I want to be there for you. I want to help you heal all the way and protect you while you do.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t let me push you away.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have more scarring, from what I saw…” he trailed off.
“Saw?” her voice trembled