She was left with questions gnawing a hole through her gut. How was he not disgusted by her actions? By what she’d become since she was kidnapped?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Chloe stated, voice heavy with fatigue. “You’ve known the whole time. Every time we’ve been together.” Water spilled from her eyes. Rocket rose from the floor, taking a seat next to her on the bed.
She didn’t kick him off. That had to be a good sign. Chloe had paid attention to what Jig was teaching her. Her cathartic punch-fest might have been sloppy and wild, but it wasn’t without some skill. He’d bear bruises for a good few days.
“Known what? What happened to you? I know how you were when I found you, but even I don’t know the details of what happened.” They’d never discussed it. But he knew she’d thought all her encounters with the men were anonymous. That the guys she took to that hotel room had no idea why she derived pleasure in dominating them. That they would assume it was just a kink. She never had to worry how they viewed her because they were clueless to what she’d been through.
But not him. Not only did he know what Lefty did to her, he was the one and only person, besides the medical team, who knew exactly how badly her body had been treated. Exactly how battered and abused she’d been.
Rocket caught the tears before they could track all the way down her cheeks. He cradled her face between his large palms, holding her head still so she couldn’t turn away. She let him, and he sent up a small prayer of thanks for small favors. “Baby, I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter or it’s okay, because it matters and it’s so far from fucking okay. Finding you that way fucked with my head. And yes, had it not been for that night I wouldn’t know who you are or felt compelled to follow you, but I don’t do shit I don’t want to do. I’m a mean motherfucker, ask anyone. I followed you because I was drawn to you, and I was with you in that hotel room all those times because I wanted you. Because I think you’re gorgeous, and I love your hands and this sexy as hell body all over me.”
Her eyes fell closed and a strangled sob erupted from her. “But everything else,” she whispered, shaking her head between his palms.
Rocket frowned and skimmed his hands down to her shoulders. He rubbed at the rock-hard tension bunching her small muscles. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you know what I did with all the men.” She swallowed and stared at a point somewhere on his chest. “You know how many men I’ve been with. You know what a slut I’ve become. Jesus, Logan, I was raped and beaten. Now I go out and pick up random men to fuck twice a week. And I’ve been doing it for months. That’s a lot of men. Even if I hadn’t been raped, even if you hadn’t seen what they did to me, everything that happened afterward makes me dirty, used. My head is so fucked up I’ve basically become a whore to scrape up some sense of peace for a few moments each week.”
“Stop!” he barked. Christ, her own mind was beating the hell out of her worse than Lefty had. Rocket gently placed a palm over her mouth to halt her growing frenzy of self-loathing. Every one of those words was a knife stripping his soul bare. He wanted nothing more than to take every ounce of pain from her. Copper was right. He was a damn protector. This impotent feeling of being unable to save Chloe from the agony of what happened to her was akin to the helplessness he encountered when his friend’s wife Elena killed herself. But the difference here was he still had a chance to help Chloe heal and find herself again. Never had he felt the desire to shield someone like he felt for Chloe. It was as high on his needs list as water, air, or shelter.
“Yes,” he said. “I know the exact number of men you walked out of that bar with. And that means I know the exact number of men you cuffed to the motel bed. And yes, I’d like to rip the dick off each and every one of them. But never once did it even cross my mind that you are dirty, or easy, or a slut. Not because you were violated, and not because of the way you’ve coped since then.”
Her red-rimmed, puffy eyes gazed at him with hope. Even sweaty and tear-stained, she was beyond beautiful to him. “But—”
He shook his head. “You need to get those thoughts out of your pretty head.”