She knew her shit.
I knew that within the first fifteen minutes of our session.
“I’m not saying it’s my fault, per se, but I am telling you that I’m the one who had asked for it,” I explained slowly.
I heard Miller growl underneath his breath, and a wave of heat started to flush my face.
“Did you tell him you didn’t want to do what you did?” Bonita asked.
I nodded urgently. “Of course I told him to stop. I’m not a fan of public displays of affection, but I am a fan of spontaneity. I’d told him on the way to church, instead of when we’d arrive home, for one simple reason. He asked. He asked and I told. I’m horrible at keeping things inside.”
“What else did you say that day?” Bonita asked.
“I told him that I wanted someone who could overpower me. Who could make me feel like I’m insignificant to their strength.”
Bonita nodded, and I chanced a look at Miller. Could see his face trying to remain neutral, yet he was doing a horrible job at hiding his anger.
“You’ve told me a lot about what you said to Mitch. How about what you were feeling during the actual act of the rape,” Bonita instructed.
I thought about it for a moment.
“It wasn’t ‘traumatizing,’” I decided on finally. “I mean, it was awful, don’t get me wrong. It didn’t hurt, though. Not the actual r-rape. It was the fact that I was scared, and the fact that he was doing it in front of so many people that really made it so awful.”
I took a shaky breath and said what I had to say next, knowing that it was going to make Miller hate me.
“I liked it though. I had an orgasm,” I said quietly. “I deserved to be treated that way after all of the depraved things I admitted to him in the car, on the way to church. I’m so fucking gross I can’t stand it. Then, here I am wanting to have sex four days after I was raped. What does that make me?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. I did it for her. “A slut, that’s what.”
I could see Miller move out of the corner of my eye, and then he was on his knees in front of me. His big palms cupping either side of my face. “That’s just bullshit, and you know it. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that. The first time you said no, and we know you said no, because we could see you as well as hear you.” I flinched at the fact that they could all see me, but Miller continued as if he never even felt the flinch. “The first time you said no, that should’ve been it. No one deserves to lose that right. Everyone has the right to say no. Everyone. Man, woman, and child.”
“As for liking stuff like that, who fucking doesn’t? Nobody wants a boring man in bed. You need chemistry to keep a relationship alive. It’s also possible to force an orgasm. To make a woman feel like she’s enjoying it. That’s just the body’s biological response to a stimulus. It’s what makes a rapist feel ten feet tall. Humiliating you was what he craved,” Miller snarled.
I blinked at the vehemence in his voice. The power behind his words. The absolute truth in them.
“He’s right, dear. Everything he’s said and more. That’s a way for the man to feel justified in doing what he did. If you enjoyed it, then he could say what he was doing wasn’t bad. He forced you to orgasm. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to move on. Nothing at all. That’s called moving on. Not dwelling on the past, something you can’t change no matter how much you wish you could. Some people it takes months, or years. But the lucky ones… the ones who have the support of a man, like the one on his knees in front of you, or a loved one who’ll help them through, those are truly the fortunate ones. The ones who can get past their fears and have a good life again,” Bonita whispered fiercely.
It was then that I realized that Bonita, too, had suffered at the hands of a man. That she’d been raped just like I’d been.
She was right. Rape was rape.
If I said no, then that constituted rape. In all fifty states.
I felt like something lifted from my chest. I wasn’t fixed, but I was on the way. All it would take was time.
***
An hour later, as Miller and I walked into the local diner called Catfish Charlie’s, I wasn’t so sure about feeling better. In fact, I was worse. Much, much worse.
I’d deliberately not gone out into public since everything had happened.
After talking with the therapist for another hour, and then telling Miller that I was scared to go out by myself, he decided we should try it out.
“No one will say a fucking word to you. I promise,” Miller declared as he held the door open for me to walk through.
I went, albeit reluctantly, but he stayed close to my back.
So close that I could feel his heat along my back.
His hand was resting at the small of my back as we walked up to the hostess station where Jeaniene stood, looking at me with sympathy.
I’d give her credit, though. She didn’t say a word as she seated Miller and me, then took our drink orders.
Miller chose to take the seat beside me instead of on the opposite side.
Effectively pinning me in, protecting me, and shielding me away from prying eyes all at the same time.
“Smooth,” I said, patting his arm.
He grinned down at me and asked, “So, what’s good at this place? I’ve never been before.”
I blinked. “You’ve never been to Catfish Charlie’s before? It’s practically a historical marker in Kilgore. Even the out-of-towners know of this place. How long have you been here again?”
“A year,” he rumbled, perusing the menu with exuberance.
I snorted. “Why haven’t you been here?”
He shrugged. “They have a fishing bait that’s used for catfishing named Catfish Charlie. I didn’t think a restaurant could be very appealing, seeing as it’s named after that shit.”
I smiled. “It’s really good. Don’t let the name fool you.”
He grunted. “Only for you, Mercy Me, will I risk my health to eat in a restaurant that’s named after something that uses ground-up fish guts and blood to make their product.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and looked down at my menu, even though I already knew what I wanted.
The table in front of me shifted, and I looked up to see Brock, one of the men who worked for me, sitting down opposite us.
He wasn’t alone, either. Porter and Maine were with him.
Porter took a seat next to Brock, and Maine pulled up a chair from another table without asking the occupants.
They gave him a look but didn’t say a word. Mainly because Maine was about two inches shy of six and a half feet and built like a scary motherfucker.
That’s what Porter and Brock said, at least.
“Gentlemen,” Miller greeted the men.
They didn’t spare him a glance, instead focusing all of their attention on me.
Porter, Brock, and Maine had been with Second Chances for a little over seven months now.
They were all from different branches of the military and had all suffered life-altering injuries that took them out of their military careers abruptly.
Brock was the first to speak. “We’ve been waiting for you to come in.”
I smiled slightly.
“I wasn’t ready,” I admitted.
He nodded, his head turning down to look at the table as if he really wanted to say something, but was telling himself he shouldn’t.
And I was thankful. I didn’t really want to start that here and now. Not yet, anyway.
There was going to be a time and a place to bring that up, but I wouldn’t be doing it after I just had a very exhausting first session with my therapist, and braving the public for the first time since the incident.
Brock looked up, and I was struck speechless by the look in his eyes.
Brock had become a great friend when he started on at Second Chances.
He was tall with brown hair, muscular, and tanned. He was normal in every
way.
Or at least with all of his clothes on.
Brock was missing a leg.
He’d been shot in the leg over a year ago and had caught an infection in his bone.
In order to keep the infection from spreading, they’d had to amputate his leg from the knee down.
He walked perfectly well, though.
You’d never know he was even missing a leg at all unless he wanted you to know.
A version of the same thing had happened to Porter.
Except for Porter had an above the knee amputation.
Porter was quiet, and I didn’t know much of his backstory.
Only that he’d been released from the Marines on medical disability, and the life he’d thought he was going back to was no longer there anymore.
At least, that’d been what he told me.
Porter was the strong, silent type.
He had blonde messy hair, beautiful skin, and blazing green eyes that reminded me of a wolf’s.
“Maddie says hi,” Maine said softly.
Maddie was Maine’s fiancée.
They’d met shortly after Maine had moved here.
“Tell her I said ‘hi’ back, and that I’d like to do lunch sometime next week to see when she wants me to go try on bridesmaid dresses,” I said softly.
Maine was sweet.
By far the most well behaved of the group, he was the one who tried to keep the others in line.
He was on the shorter side, around five foot eight. He had black shaggy hair and looked to have some Chinese ancestry that gave him an Asian hint to his features.
He reminded me of Bruce Lee.
Maine had severe PTSD and struggled with it on a daily basis.
He’d just started being able to go out in public, but loud noises still scared the shit out of him and sent him into a fog of memories.
Which was made more than apparent in the next few seconds when the doors to the kitchen banged open.
The waitress who’d taken our order was in the process of going in with a large tray of dirty dishes, and the inevitable happened.
One second the dishes danced precariously on the edge of the tray, and the next they crashed loudly to the ground, causing Maine to freeze.
He didn’t remain frozen for long.
The next second he was spinning around and crouched down, hands covering his ears as he took in the restaurant with sightless eyes.
“Shit,” Porter hissed, standing up.
“Don’t touch him,” I ordered them all. “Brock, call Maddie. She’s at work and not far away.”
Maddie was a sales representative at the local Dixie Star Boutique down the road. She owned the store, and hopefully had a few of her underlings there so she could come up here.
I’d found out that it took Maine a very long time to come out of his episodes. The longest one I’d witnessed, to date, was over an hour long, and the only one able to break him out of it was Maddie.
Miller stood to the side, staring at the man, waiting for him to go crazy.
But he also had a sympathetic look on his face, one that told of a dark understanding.
“You okay?” I asked him.
He turned his eyes to me, those gorgeous blue eyes, and shook his head. “Yeah, fine.”
Ten long minutes later, Maddie came running around the side of the building and rushed in through the front door.
She approached Maine slowly, eyes haunted as she walked up to him slowly.
“Maine,” she called from a few feet away. “Baby, guess what.”
Maine turned his head but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her presence.
So there we sat, waiting on pins and needles for him to come out of his fog.
Something he did long minutes later when Maddie whispered something in his ear.
“You’re shitting me,” he rasped.
She shook her head, hugging him around the neck. “Nope. Found out this morning.”
“You’re gonna give me a baby?” he whispered fiercely.
She nodded, tears running down her cheeks as she threw herself into his arms.
He caught her easily and whooped loudly. “I’m gonna be a daddy!”
Brock and Porter were grinning ear to ear, as was Miller.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t.
My mind was on my own life. My own little could be.
That just brought another possibility up. One I’d been studiously ignoring since the moment I’d refused the morning after pill.
A pill that was against everything that I was, against everything I’d learned from the moment I was old enough to go to church.
A pill that would’ve kept me from feeling like I was right this very second.
I could be a mom.
To a baby who wasn’t created out of love, like it should be, but out of hate.
A baby who was made by a man who had raped me.
Thou shall not kill- that was what I was thinking when I’d refused that little pill.
All of a sudden, all the things that I’d been ignoring crashed into me.
I stumbled back, but I didn’t fall.
Why? Because Miller was there to catch me.
Chapter 6
Brothers are good for two things. Drinking your beer and watching your back.
-Life Lesson
Miller
One week later
“Wow, I’m surprised you graced us with your presence,” James drawled.
James was the resident sniper for the SWAT team, and a really good guy…most of the time. Right now he just pissed me off.
I was in a bad mood. Probably overthinking the last thing Mercy had asked me to do as I walked out last night. To her. For her.
Something that I thought about all night long, and kept thinking about since the moment I woke up from what little sleep I was able to get.
“Fuck off,” I said, lacing up my boots.
So I’d been spending a lot of time with Mercy. Big fucking whoop. He spent a lot of time with his own wife and kids, yet you didn’t see me giving him shit about it.
“Somebody’s grouchy this morning. Who pissed on your bran muffin?” Foster drawled as he practically fell into the seat beside me.
He looked tired. Which I guess was normal for a man who stayed out so late that he was home after the streetlights went off for the morning.
He did have a nice smile on his face, though.
“Pissed in your Corn Flakes,” I corrected him.
“Whatever,” he muttered as he started yanking his clothes out of his locker and shrugging into them.
“Did you really wear no shirt or shoes up here?” Luke, the team captain, asked as he walked into the room already dressed.
“Sho’ nuff’,” Foster confirmed.
Luke just shook his head and turned his gaze on me.
“How’s our girl doin’?” he asked curiously.
I smiled. Mercy had become quite the popular girl among the SWAT team.
She’d practically been everywhere that I had for the past week, and she’d come to be a part of the team.
Well, not the team, because I sure as fuck would never let that happen, but she’d become an add-on to me.
Where I went, she went, and vice versa… when we were off, that was.
Her parents had just returned last night from their Caribbean cruise, so I assumed that’d slack off, which made me unexplainably sad.
We’d literally spent every waking moment that we weren’t working together, and it’d kind of suck if her time with me was stolen away.
Yes, call me selfish, but I was really taking a liking to having her around.
“What the hell are we doing here so early? What the fuck is wrong with nine in the morning instead of six?” Bennett, another member of the SWAT team, grumbled as he walked in the door.
“The problem with that, is that we need team hours, and that can’t be done by ten
if we start at nine. Not to mention the place we’re going to has had to open late to let us have the place to ourselves,” Luke snapped.
“What the hell is your problem?” Downy asked as he followed closely behind Bennett.
Downy was our hostage negotiator, and damn good at his job. Oh, he was good at the SWAT part of it, too, but not like he was at negotiating.
The man was a natural at what he did, and if he could talk the situation down instead of us having to use force to get inside, then that was a good thing in my book.
I didn’t want to put my life on the line if I didn’t have to.
“Where are we going, anyway?” John asked from his position in the corner of the room. “I left my nice, cozy bed with my sleepy, soft wife in it for the first Saturday I’ve had off in a month to be here. It better be good.”
John was our computer expert. He participated in all the drills and kept up his part of the training, but he didn’t participate in the SWAT operations unless he was needed, instead staying in the truck to work his mojo magic with his computer.
He was also newly married. As in, last week newly married.
Which had surprised not just us, but the entire department. Mainly because he’d married a young rookie cop who’d been out of the academy for less than a month.
She was cute, though, and they were happy. Who was I to say anything to the contrary?
“You’ll see. Get in the truck, boys,” Luke said cryptically.
We arrived at Extreme Paintball less than thirty minutes later, and every one of us had a grin on our face.
“Fuck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” Foster said as he got out of the truck first.
“This counts as team time?” Bennett grinned, hopping out of the truck and walking toward the front door.
The place was massive, and all indoor.
I’d heard about the place but had never stepped foot inside.
There hadn’t been enough time.
The first month I’d gotten stateside, I’d applied at a few locations that had SWAT teams, but, in the end, had been recruited by Luke to become a part of Kilgore SWAT team.
Once I’d attended the academy, I’d immediately started the normal everyday work of a patrol officer in the Kilgore area. Then had gone through training.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 65