Mark stood and held out his hand to me. I looked up at him in question. “Give me your hand. I want to show you how worth it you are.”
I placed my hand in his as he led me back to the bedroom. When we got there, he led me over the free standing mirror and had me look at myself as he stood behind me.
“What do you see?”
“I see a broken girl standing in front of a gorgeous man.”
“No, look at you. What do you see?”
I looked at myself and I wasn’t happy with what I saw. There weren’t many days that I chose to look at myself. I used to be obsessed with how I looked, but after I was kidnapped, I couldn’t stand to look at myself anymore. The scars were too ugly.
I looked down at my feet, but Mark grabbed my face and held me looking at myself. “Why can’t you see it? You’re beautiful. You’re obviously smart and you have enough sass to drive any man crazy. Not to mention, you’re great in bed. But those things are all superficial for you. You are so much more than that. You’re a survivor.”
He took the hem of my shirt and started to lift if over my head. I immediately pulled it back down, but he removed my hands and proceeded. My face flamed as I saw the scars appear. It was somewhat dark in the room since only the light from the hall illuminated the dark space, but I could still see every mark on my body. When my shirt was removed, he undid my pants and pulled them from my body. He stood and ran his hand over the faint scars from where the spikes had dug into my body. I hadn’t thought he had seen them when we’d had sex before. It had been dark, so I’d hoped that my body was concealed.
He got down on his knees and kissed the slashes across my back. As he continued to kiss my back, he took my panties and slowly slid them down my legs. His lips caressed the cheeks of my ass, kissing each mark that the asshole’s belt had left. He continued down to my thighs, his tenderness making me melt. He slid his hand between my folds as he stood and slowly worked me until I was wet for him.
“You think that these marks make you ugly. You let them define you, but I know that you’re more than what that bastard took from you. You survived and you will come out stronger for it. You just have to believe in yourself. Do you feel yourself quiver from my touch? Does this feel like the touch from a man who doesn’t think you’re worth it?” I shook my head. “Does it make you feel alive when I touch you like this?”
I nodded and stared at him touching me in the mirror. He wrapped his other hand around me and massaged my breast as his other hand worked my clit.
“There is nothing more beautiful than when you come for me. I want to be the one to always put that look on your face. Maybe that’s selfish, but I see you for who you are and I want you all for myself.”
He pushed two fingers inside me and pumped in and out. My heart beat out of control as he pushed me higher. “You are not broken, Cara. You’re strong and we’re going to make you stronger yet.”
My pussy contracted around his fingers when he used his thumb to massage my clit. “Oh!” I almost collapsed as every sensation in my body heightened to an unbearable level. He held me up as he continued to drag out my orgasm.
“Beautiful, Lollipop.” He pulled his fingers out of me and licked them. Groaning, he carried me over to the bed and threw me down, spreading my legs. “Speaking of, it’s time to have another taste of my Lollipop.”
His head pressed between my legs and he slowly licked me to another orgasm. Everything was a haze to me as he worshiped my body in every way possible. When he was done eating me, he moved up and hovered over my body. His eyes asked me if this was okay and it really was with him, so I nodded. He made sure to stay off my body as he slowly pushed inside me. His thrusts were slow at first but became more frantic with every stroke.
“Do you feel that, Lollipop? Do you feel my cock aching for you?” He pumped into me harder and harder. “There has never been anyone more worth it than you.” He reached between us and played with my clit as he continued to make love to me. “I barely know you and I see what a magnificent woman you are.” He pulled my legs up and pounded into me over and over until I screamed his name. Spots danced in front of my eyes from the force of my orgasm. He stilled and grunted as he jerked inside my body.
“Fuck, Cara. Your goddamned pussy is a danger to my cock.”
He collapsed on top of me, but then rolled to the side and pulled me with him. He pulled my leg on top his and ran his fingers up and down my thigh. We laid in the quiet for a few minutes and I enjoyed snuggling against him. I hadn’t had a man hold me like this in so long and I never realized how much I craved to feel it again.
“What happened that day?” he asked quietly. “I know what happened with Alex, but you were only held for ten days and you seemed to suffer just as much.”
As much as I didn’t want Mark to know what had happened to me, he was also the only person I was willing to tell at the moment. I took Dr. Penwarden’s advice and chose to put my trust in this man that already had so much of me. What was one final piece?
“I’ve heard what happened to Alex. When he first took me, it was very similar to what Alex went through. Punching, cigarette burns, shallow slices on my body. It was all scare tactics. He didn’t actually want to cause lasting damage.”
“Those marks on your body don’t suggest that. What changed?”
“The last day I was being held, he woke me up with a bucket of water and stripped me naked. I watched him set up poles in four corners. Then, he tied ropes around my arms and legs and tied each one to a pole until I was suspended in the air.”
I took a deep breath as I remembered the spikes coming into view for the first time. It was more terrifying than anything else I had experienced.
“He had spikes mounted on boards that he slid underneath me. There were hundreds of them. He..he took off his belt and started beating me with it. He said he had wanted to drag it out, but he found out Sean was a cop and knew that he wouldn’t stop looking for me. He didn’t want to take the chance with me.”
I started trembling in his arms and he pulled the comforter over us. I wasn’t cold, but it made me feel protected. He ran his hand over my leg while the other massaged my arm.
“I knew that was it. He was going to kill me and make it as painful as possible so that he could still enjoy it. He beat me so hard with the belt that I passed out. When I woke up, he was gone, but I had a terrible pain in my stomach. My body had sagged and the ropes were giving out. My torso was already partially impaled on the spikes. They weren’t deep enough to do a lot of damage, but it was very painful and the fear made it worse.”
“Did he ever come back?”
“No. I heard a car pull up and I assumed it was him, but the footsteps on the stairs never came. I took a chance that it was someone else and I screamed until my throat was raw. It was a farmer that had come to check on his crops. He told me that he never came over to that section, but he had decided to check it out that day. When he came downstairs, he was so shocked that it took him a moment to run over to me. He held me up as he kicked the spikes out of the way and then he untied me. He called 9-1-1 and wrapped me in a sheet he found upstairs. I don’t remember much after that. I think I was in shock.”
“Did you ever tell Sean about what he said?”
“No, I never told Sean anything about that day. He saw me when I got to the hospital, but I asked the doctors not to release any information about me. Sean would have blamed himself for the timeline being sped up. Maybe I wouldn’t have been quite so injured when I was found, but I never blamed him. I was in the hands of a psychopath. Then, three years ago, when Alex escaped, recounted everything else, but I just couldn’t tell him about that day. I told him everything that was relevant to finding the guy.”
“It’s amazing how ten days can change your whole life.”
“Before..I was just a normal woman in my early twenties. I didn’t go out a lot because I worked so much, but I hung out with friends. We got coffee and I would go out for dinner when I had a
night off. Now, I stay home and read or watch TV. My whole life is wrapped up around those ten days and I would give anything to just feel normal again.”
He kissed my head and then laid with me in silence. I was just starting to doze off when I heard him get up.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to leave.”
He wouldn’t look at me as he got dressed and I had the feeling that I made a terrible mistake telling him what I had. He would never look at me the same after those images were in his head.
“Okay, I’ll see you later?”
He glanced quickly at me and nodded. “Lock up behind me.”
Then he was out the door. His truck rumbled to life and he tore out of the driveway. I had never felt so torn up in all my life, which meant that I felt way more for Mark than I should. Judging by the way he left, he didn’t return my feelings and probably regretted everything he had said tonight.
I want to be the one to always put that look on your face.
Was everything that had just happened all a lie?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sinner
I SHOULDN’T HAVE run out of there, but I was so pissed about what she told me and I didn’t think I could stay around her. The worst part about it all was that she was almost killed after ten days because Sean was a cop. That had to have been weighing on her over the years, but she never said anything because she didn’t want to hurt Sean. To think that she might not have gone through all that if only she wasn’t the sister of a cop.
I drove into to town and headed for her brother’s house. He was the only one I wanted to see right now and it wasn’t going to be a friendly visit. After hearing all that she went through, I couldn’t believe how he treated her. He had no idea the damage he was doing to her. I was about to let him know.
I honked my horn as I pulled in the drive, wanting to pull the fucker outside. As expected, he walked outside and waited for me to get out of the truck.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
I slammed the truck door and stalked toward him. “I’m here because you and I need to have a little chat.”
“I don’t have shit to say to you.”
I grabbed him by the shirt before he could make a move, but he countered with a punch to my kidneys. I took it and relished the pain. I needed it right now to wipe away the thoughts swirling through my brain. He landed punch after punch and I didn’t move. I wasn’t ready yet.
“What’s going on?” Lillian screeched as she walked out of the house. “Sean, stop! He’s not even fighting you.”
Sean pulled back and glared at me. “Get the fuck off my property.”
I breathed through the pain and shook my head. “Not until we talk about Cara.”
“What? You want to tell me how much you love fucking with her head? Because that’s all you’re doing. I know your reputation and there’s no way you’ll ever convince me that you’re more than a fucking womanizer.”
“Sean!” Lillian gasped and covered her mouth.
He turned and walked away and thats when I let my bomb drop.
“Has she ever told you what happened to her that day?”
Sean stopped and turned to look at me. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he needed to know. This was something that ate at him.
“She never told anyone. It’s not even in the police report,” he croaked.
“Well, she told me tonight, and let me tell you, that’s shit that you don’t want in your head. What I want to know is why you treat her the way you do?”
“I take care of her. That’s a hell of a lot more than you do for her,” he snarled.
“You treat her like she’s broken.”
“She is fucking broken! You didn’t see her for the three years after she was found. You didn’t have to be there for all her freak outs. You didn’t have to see her terrified of her own shadow, not being able to leave her bedroom because she could swear that fucker was coming back to get her. You weren’t there last weekend when she sat in a closet holding a knife as she pissed all over the floor because she was so out of it, she didn’t even realize she went.”
“And you just love to throw that in her face, right?”
“I wasn’t throwing it in her face. I was trying to make her see that you weren’t good for her.”
“Yeah, well all you did was make her feel like a broken piece of shit that isn’t worth anyone’s time. She thinks she’s a nuisance. You did that to her,” I pointed at him accusingly.
“No-”
“Yes!” I shouted. “You may not think you did, but every time you rub her face in the fact that she struggles to do normal things, you make her feel less and less worthy of even being on this earth! You did that to her!”
I was shouting at him and I just couldn’t stop my tirade. I was so pissed that he couldn’t see how much he was hurting his sister, a woman that I had come to care so much about in just a short amount of time.
“All the people in her life think that she can’t handle shit. Instead of trying to find ways to help her, you tell her she isn’t strong enough. You could have been forcing her out of the house and helping her to be comfortable again, but you didn’t and now she can’t even sit in a fucking restaurant and eat because she developed a social anxiety disorder.”
His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He didn’t know. I huffed out a laugh and ran a hand over my face.
“Have you even bothered to try to understand your sister or talk to her about what happened?”
“She didn’t want to.”
“Of course she didn’t want to. You have to make her comfortable enough that she feels you won’t judge her. Did you ever try that? Did you ever fucking try to get to the root of the problem? She feels like she’s not fucking worth it! It’s so fucking clear and no one sees it.”
Lillian was standing on the grass with her hand over her mouth and tears running down her face. I blew out a breath and walked back to my truck. Enough was enough. Sean knew now and hopefully he did something about it before Cara no longer wanted him in her life. I slammed the door to my truck and drove back to Cara’s house. I had no doubt that I had just fucked with her head when I left, but I was about to make sure she knew exactly what I felt.
When I pulled in her driveway, there wasn’t a single light on in the house. I got out and banged on her door.
“Cara, it’s Mark. Let me in.”
After a few seconds, the door opened and Cara stood in front of me with red rimmed eyes and blotchy cheeks. I pulled her into me and held her as she cried into my chest. I felt like such an asshole for leaving her like that.
“I’m sorry, Cara. I was pissed and I needed to leave. I didn’t want to scare you.”
“I thought-”
“I know what you thought and I’m sorry. I had to go have a talk with your brother.”
She pulled back suddenly and stared at me with an open mouth.
“You did what?”
“I needed to. He’s treating you like shit-”
“He is not!”
“Really, Cara? He stood here and threw it in your face that you went into a meltdown after your therapy appointment. He made a point of letting Drew and I know that you pissed on the floor because he wanted to drive home his point.”
“He wasn’t trying to be malicious.”
“No, he wasn’t, but he doesn’t see how much it hurts you either. He doesn’t see that he’s the one hurting your progress.”
She shook her head. “No, he’s not.”
“Lollipop, you may not be able to see this because you’ve been wrapped up in it for so long, but I can. It’s clear as fucking day to me that he doesn’t know how to deal with what you’re going through. He needed to be clued the fuck in before he said something that he couldn’t come back from.”
Anger flushed her cheeks and she crossed her arms over her chest. I didn’t understand. I was the one standing beside her to help her through this.
“It wasn’t y
our place to say anything.”
“You’ve never told anyone but me about what happened that day. Why do you think that is?”
“Because I don’t want people to pity me.”
“No, it’s because you’re ashamed and you don’t trust anyone to not judge you for what happened beyond your control.”
She kept shaking her head.
“Cara, you have to let people in. If your brother knew-”
“No! I don’t want him to know.”
“Why? He would understand.”
“Because it’s none of his business.”
“He can’t help if he doesn’t know what happened. He’s an idiot for the way he’s been treating you, but you have to give a little too. He needs to understand.”
“I said no! Just leave. I don’t want you here.”
“Cara, I just want to help you.”
“No, you want to fuck me. That’s what this is all about anyway. We agreed to fuck, not for you to become my therapist.”
I ran a hand over my hair in frustration. Why couldn’t she see that I was the only one that was trying to help her?
“I’m not trying to be your therapist.”
“Then stop telling me what to do. I didn’t tell you so you could go make my brother feel like shit.”
“I didn’t tell him anything. I would never go behind your back like that.”
“No, you would just go tell him that you did know so you could rub it in. Let me tell you something, my relationship with my brother is none of your business.”
This ship was sinking fast and I had to fix it before not even a life raft would save me.
“I care about you.”
Her eyes steeled and her body went rigid.
“Too bad. Whatever we had is over. I don’t need another person in my life to tell me what I need to do to get over my fears.”
I stepped into her space and wrapped my hand around the back of her neck, pulling her closer to me. I was desperate to get through to her. I couldn’t let her kick me out of her life. Not now that I really knew her.
“Don’t tell me it’s over. We have something good here and I know you feel it too. We just have to work past this-”
Sinner: A Reed Security Romance Page 13