“Then why don’t you trust yourself around me?”
“Because I…”
I trail off, my gaze flicking down to my hands. Hands that once wrapped around her throat, squeezing her windpipe as my fucked-up mind screamed at me that she was the enemy.
“I don’t understand it all,” she says quietly when I don’t finish my sentence. “But I understand better than I once did about how that loss of power and control can fuck you up in the head.” She grimaces. “Honestly, I’m still reeling from the rug being yanked out from under me. I don’t know who or what I can believe in. What aspects of my life are real, and which parts are lies.”
Hurt flashes across her face. Drawn by the impulse to comfort her, I take a few steps forward, closing the distance between us a little. She doesn’t flinch away from me. She doesn’t pull me closer. She stays where she is, not moving.
“You once told me something I’ll never forget,” she continues in her soft whisper. “You told me that I was a survivor. That I had survived.”
The reminder brings a fresh wave of awareness through my body, remembering the circumstances of what she’s referring to—the shower. Her wet, naked body against my clothes, sticking to my own skin. Hardly knowing what to do, but for once, letting the instinct that trauma had buried take over me.
“I think you forget that you’re a survivor too, Ciro.”
My eyes snap to hers, surprised when they glisten in the light. Her voice is so steady it hardly betrays any emotion, but I can see pain in her expression.
It’s not pain for herself though, I don’t think.
It’s for me.
“And if your captivity fucked you up in the head?” She shrugs, her golden hair shifting around her shoulders. “If that trauma stayed with you? That doesn’t make you any less of a survivor.”
My knees are weak, my whole body strangely weak. I take another few steps toward her. I want to sit on the bed with her, but instead, I stop at the edge of the mattress, close enough that the heavy blanket brushes against my knees. Close enough to feel the comfort of her words. Her presence.
“Are your night terrors…” She hesitates, pausing. “Do you have them often?”
I never talk about this shit. Only with Hale, and only because I had to make sure he knew how to handle me if he couldn’t snap me out of it. But for some reason, my mouth opens, and I find myself answering.
“Yes. I don’t have control over them. Nothing stops them.”
I’ve tried things, but I’ve given up. Drugs make them worse. Alcohol makes them worse. People… I grit my teeth, remembering what happened the one time I allowed myself to fall asleep in Grace’s arms.
“What are they about?” she asks gently. “The dreams? The nightmares?”
I give her a sad glance, because she knows I can’t tell her that. I’ve never told them to anyone, and the flashes of recurring night terrors that slip through my mind are nothing anyone else should have to live through, let alone hear about.
But I want to tell her. I want to tell someone.
I’ve never wanted to tell someone before.
“Loss of… control,” I say, the words catching in my throat. “You’re right. I’m afraid of losing control.”
I swallow, thick and heavy, a clammy chill creeping over my skin as images race through my head. I hate sleeping. Of all the things I’ve lived through, I’m not scared of the torture anymore, or the pain. But sleep? That’s where I lose the battle against the darkness. I lose control over my mind, and my mind reminds me all over again that I’m fucked up.
That the demons inside me are more powerful than I am.
“Ciro,” Grace murmurs. It’s too soft. Too sweet. But when I start to glance at the door, seeking some escape, she calls me back to her. “Look at me, Ciro.”
Clenching my jaw, I look back down at her.
Moving slowly, purposefully, she lies back on the bed. Then she reaches up, the thin straps of her tank top shifting slightly as she grasps the headboard with her hands.
“I won’t move.” Her knees fall open slightly, that space between her thighs taunting me, tempting me. “I won’t move unless you tell me to.”
I force myself to meet her gaze, to find something in her eyes—anything that tells me she’s not being serious, that she’s only doing this for my sake, that she’s still scared of me. That I’m going to break her.
Her hazel eyes gleam in the darkness, burning with desire. And even more terrifying, with trust.