I walk away from them, and go to find a seat. Aiden will find me when he’s done. Or he won’t. I’m stuck here either way, so I might as well enjoy the show. I only make it to the entrance before Aiden’s in front of me.
“That’s not what it looked like.”
“A wickedly hot chick didn’t just launch herself into your arms like she belonged there?”
“She thinks I’m hot. I like her, Aid,” the girl says, coming around in front of me as well. I take her in from the front, and she’s no less spectacular. She’s got jet black hair in a long bob, and some of the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. Hot doesn’t even begin to describe her. “You should keep her,” she adds, circling his arm with both of hers.
He pulls away to glare at her. “I’m trying to keep her, but you climbing all over me isn’t helping.”
“Oh, sorry,” she says, looking sheepish. “I just got a little excited to see you after so long.”
“Are you going to introduce us?” I ask, now more amused than angry.
“Yes. Ellie, the octopus who can’t keep her arms to herself is my friend Haring’s little sister, Matisse. Matisse, this is my girlfriend, Ellie.”
“Haring and Matisse, huh?”
“Yeah. Mom loves art. It’s great to meet you. Anyone who can get Aiden to use the ‘G’ word has got to be pretty special.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Do you skate?”
“Oh no. I suck, which annoys my brother to no end. I’m a tattoo artist.”
“Awesome. You have some cool tats. I want one, but I promised my friend, Zane, that he could do it once I decide what I want. Otherwise I’d ask you to do it.”
“She’s definitely a keeper, Aiden.”
“I know. Now let’s go sit down so we can watch your brother’s team kick some ass.”
The game is crazy and fun. Matisse sits next to me instead of Aiden, and we talk during the short breaks in between periods. She’s a stylist for a couple of up and coming bands here in D.C., and I have to smile when she mentions that Stella is one of her idols. I don’t tell her that I know her, thinking I’ll surprise her when she comes to visit us, which she promises to do. I really like her, and think we could be friends. Her brother comes over once his teams wins, and he’s pretty cool, too.
“Thank you for introducing me to your friends,” I tell Aiden as he drives me home.
“You don’t have to thank me. They think I’m the lucky one, you know. You totally charmed them.”
“I was just being me.”
“I know.”
“This was the best first date ever. I don’t want it to end.”
“It’s up to you whether it does, or not,” he says, pulling into my driveway, and looking at me intently.
“Not.”
“I was really hoping you’d say that.” He’s out of the car and opening my door in seconds. I start to reach for my things, but he stops me. “Leave it all. Well, maybe not everything. Bring the flowers. I have an idea of how I can use them. If you want.”
Oh, I want. He knows how damn much I want him and whatever that beautiful mind of his comes up with. Especially because I know he’ll only do things I’m comfortable with. His friends said he was the lucky one, but I’m lucky too. I can’t wait to show him how much I appreciate this date, the way he loves me, and everything else he says and does for me. I just hope he’ll one day forgive me for keeping the secrets I have to, and let us have that “forever’ he talks about.
Chapter 13
Aiden
It’s nearing closing time when I hear Ellie shriek. I look over to see some guy with his hands on her tits. I’m vaulting over the bar before she even has a chance to push his hands off. My fists are flying, and he goes down hard. I follow him to the ground and continue pounding on him until I feel several sets of arms pulling me off of him. I try to break free, because I’m not done yet, but then Ellie’s in front of me.
“It’s okay, Aiden. I’m okay.”
“He was touching you.”
“And you stopped him. He can’t hurt me now.”
I look down, and see the guy bloody and curled up in a ball. Ellie is looking a little green—she hates blood. She causes it to spill when she has to, but she doesn’t like it. I turn her away from him.
“Okay. Okay. I should clean up.”
She takes my hand and leads me to the employee break room where the large staff bathroom is. I face the sink and hold onto it as I try to let go of the rest of my rage. I can hear her gathering things from the cabinet, but I can’t look at her. I know she’s freaked out, and that right there tells me that I’m right in keeping what I do from her. If she knew I hunted people like that asshole, and hurt them worse than I hurt the guy here, she’d be disgusted by me. I know it. It’s been over two weeks now since I went out, but tonight tells me I’m still that guy—that killer, and that my bloodlust isn’t really gone.
“Thank you.”
“For acting like a monster?”
“What? No. You were just protecting me. You’re not a monster.”
“What if I am, Ellie?”
“You’re not,” she says, running her hands over my shoulders and down my arms.
She lifts my hand and starts cleaning it. I wince a little, and she kisses my palm before continuing to clean and bandage both of my hands. I think our discussion is over, but then she speaks again.
“The men who captured me…who hurt me…they’re monsters. Men like them are monsters. You’re not, Aiden, and nothing you could ever do would make me feel differently.”
“I should’ve been there.”
“You would’ve been there if you could have. I know that. I don’t blame you, and you’re going to need to stop blaming yourself if we have any chance at a future.”
“You really mean that,” I say, turning to search her eyes. I didn’t phrase it as a question, because it wasn’t one. Her voice and her eyes tell me that she really doesn’t blame me. I want to fall to my knees and thank her, but I manage to stay on my feet for the moment.
“I do. And…and I also need to talk to you about what happened…to…me. If we’re going to have a chance at that forever, I need you to know what really happened.”
“Now?”
“If we can leave, yes. I can’t do it here.”
“It’s almost closing time. Theo will close up for us, and Tieny can handle your stuff, right?”
“Yeah. I’m sure she will.”
“Let’s go,” I say.
We stop so she can grab her purse, and we can talk to Theo and Tieny. They’re both happy to cover for us. Theo tells me he put the guy in a cab, and that he doesn’t think he’ll press charges. I could honestly care less. No one puts their hands on Ellie unless they have permission. Not even me.
“My place, or yours?” I ask her.
“Yours. Please.”
The drive there is quiet. I hold her hand as I sense the change in her. The closer we get to my apartment, the straighter she sits. I know this is going to be hard, maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I’m glad she’s finally ready to tell me what happened. I can’t help her if I don’t know what I’m up against.
Once we’re inside, I make her a cup of hot chocolate, and then we sit facing each other on my couch. She takes a sip, and then places the mug on the coffee table before speaking.
“You got my texts and voicemails eventually, right?”
“Yeah. Too late.”
“No blame, Aiden. I mean it. I won’t be able to get through this if I’m worrying about you blaming yourself. I have enough blame for both of us.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“El.”
“Please… just let me get it out. Please.”
“Go ahead,” I tell her with a nod.
“You know the mission. I was supposed to go in and kill the main guy who was running a child and teen prostitution ring. The intel we gathered said that if he was taken down, there was no
one ready to take his place, and in the chaos that ensued, we could save everyone. I was totally planning to go along with the parameters and timing that had been set. I know Ainsley, Tegan, and Isa work hard with their teams to make sure almost every possible problem is eliminated. While I was watching the compound, I saw a guard beating a little girl, and I just snapped. I couldn’t wait. I had to save her. I had to save all of them. I was so stupid.”
“Caring about kids isn’t stupid.”
“None of my team was in place, Aid. Even if you had been there, it would’ve just been the two of us against too many.”
“You ended up saving them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, when the Calvary came.” She looks to the ceiling and continues. “I went in and was captured. The man in charge decided to make an example of me. He thought I was related to one of the girls, or just someone hired by one of the families. He wanted to humiliate me, to show other people what would happen if they tried to come after him.”
She closes her eyes, and I reach for her hand. She lets me take it and squeezes it hard before she continues. “They stripped me naked and tied me to a cross in the middle of the compound’s courtyard. Then they…they started touching me. Several men at once. My breasts, my ass, my…my vagina. They pinched me and put their fingers in me.”
“I’m digging up those bodies so I can put a few more bullets in them, and then burn the motherfuckers.”
“There’s not much left of them.”
“That’s why I can’t touch you? They hurt you.”
“No. I mean, yes, they hurt me. But not from what I just told you.” She reaches for her hot chocolate and takes another sip. Then she moves off the couch into the chair next to it. I start to get up, but she holds up a hand to stop me. “If you still want me after the rest, you can sit with me. You deserve to have a chance to walk away if it’s too much.”
“No matter what you say, no matter what happened to you, I’ll always want you.”
“We’ll see.” She closes her eyes again, and I know that she’s going back into her memories. “I didn’t react to the men. At all. I didn’t want their hands on me, and my body knew it. I didn’t get wet, and though my nipples got a little hard, they could tell that it was just a reaction, I wasn’t aroused. They couldn’t break me if I didn’t react to them.
“Some of the men wanted to rape me, but the leader realized it would be the same. I wouldn’t become aroused, or come for them. That’s when he had them bring some of the teenage girls out. He took off their clothes and told me that if I didn’t come for them like he knew I wanted to, he’d make the girls come for them instead.”
“Ellie,” I say, afraid of what’s going to come next.
“I couldn’t let him hurt those girls. I know the men had already raped and abused them, but this time it would be my fault. So I did the only thing I could think of. I did what I had to do in order to make myself come. I pretended it was you who was touching me. And I came for them. More than once. I knew it wasn’t you touching me, that the hands on me weren’t yours—they didn’t feel like yours—but I made my body believe it was you so I could give them what they wanted from me.”
“Jesus.”
“You can leave. I’ll understand.”
She’s got to be kidding. “I’m not leaving. Not now, not ever.”
* * *
Ellie
“Even after what I told you. How I used you to get off for other men?”
“That’s not what you just told me.”
“It is. Didn’t you listen?”
“Yes. I heard you tell me that you used me to save not only a bunch of teenage girls, but yourself, too.”
“I came for them, Aiden.”
“But you knew it wasn’t them. You couldn’t come for them. You came for me. And I am so fucking glad that you did. That I was able to help you, even while I wasn’t there. It was my touch you imagined, all the while knowing that those men hurting you weren’t me.”
“That’s what my shrink and Nate told me. Jade said it too after I had Nate tell her. I didn’t really believe any of them.”
“Do you believe me?”
“I want to.”
He moves off the couch to kneel in front of my chair. “Then do it, because I mean what I’m saying. You did not hurt me—or us—in any way. You survived, Ellie. You’re still here with me, letting me kiss you, and hold your hand. I will take that over any alternative. You need to forgive yourself, because from my side of things, you did nothing wrong.”
“Nate said you’d say that, too.”
“My best friend is pretty smart sometimes. Don’t tell him I said that, but he is.”
“They saw me, you know,” I tell him, putting my head back down to look at our joined hands.
“Matt and Nate?”
“Jake, too. I was naked…and I was about to-to come again when they walked in. I stopped, but they saw.”
“That’s why there’s not much left of the guys who touched you, huh?”
“No. That was Reina, Jade, Isa, and Audrey. They took out those bastards while the guys led the team that took out the other men in the compound.”
“Am I supposed to be upset because my friends saw you like that? Because again, they helped save you. Knowing them, it embarrassed them as much as it embarrassed you.”
“It did,” I tell him, giving him a real smile as I remember the first couple of weeks when we got back. “Only Nate could look me in the eye after, and that’s just because he understood.”
“They’re good with you now, right? I mean, Jake and Matt didn’t seem any different around you when I saw them.”
“Yeah. I told them all I knew they all looked away after seeing that I was naked—because they did. They looked at everything but me until I had a sheet thrown over me. I basically said what you just said, that they saved me, so it was okay. The girls told them it was okay, too.”
“Good. Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
“No, but your reaction was the one I was hoping would happen. I honestly didn’t think it would be the one I’d get, but I asked to come here because I was hoping.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Yeah. I-I just wanted to ask you for something. You don’t have to do it. I mean, maybe you’ll want to. I don’t know.”
“Anything. Absolutely anything you ask me is going to be a yes. So go ahead and tell me what I need to do for you.”
“Ever since that day, I’ve felt…dirty, and gross. I couldn’t let you touch me because I felt like it would be wrong to come for you when I came for them with you on my mind. I-I want to be clean, and I want you to touch me.”
“My bathtub. That’s why you wanted to tell me here.”
“Yes. Will you help me get clean, and replace those fake touches with your real ones again?”
“Yes. A million times yes. That’s the easiest yes I’ve ever had to say in my life.”
Chapter 14
Ellie
“Bubble or bomb?” Aiden asks, holding up the different bath products from Lush.
“Um, both?”
“Of course,” he tells me with a smile.
While the tub fills up, I reach over and pull his light blue shirt off. It’s the one I bought him on our date last week, the one with those little holes all over the front. I laugh, thinking about all of those women from the bar clawing at him to tear his shirt, but never getting him.
“Is my chest funny all of a sudden?”
“No, I was laughing at your shirt.”
“You bought me this shirt.”
“I know. It just dawned on me that the holes could look like claw marks.”
“The only woman getting close enough to claw me is you. Do you want to sink your nails into me while I make you scream?”
“Yes.”
“Good answer,” he tells me, breaking out one of those sexy smiles of his.
He kicks his shoes off while I undo his belt. Once I have his pants
and briefs off, I take his hands in mine. I lead his hands to the zipper on my corset and let go as he starts to pull it down. This is the first time he’s going to see me fully naked in months. I’m not scared, but I am nervous that I won’t be as sexy to him as I once was.
“Stop overthinking.”
“I’m trying to.”
“You stop me if it’s too hard, okay?”
I nod as my top drops to the floor. Aiden waits for me to nod again, and then reaches for the side zipper on my skirt. Once that’s on the floor, he hooks his thumbs into my panties as he looks me in the eye. I wiggle them off since he’s refusing to look down. I know he’s doing it to make me feel more comfortable, and I appreciate it.
“You can look, Aiden. I want you to look at me.”
He steps back, and I watch as he gaze travels over me. He bites his lip as he keeps his hands clenched at his sides. I reach out to turn off the water, and then take one of his fists in mine, and climb into the tub with him. Again, he waits for me to take the lead.
I motion for him to sit, and then turn around, sinking down into the water in front of him. I move his hands to my shoulders, and lean back to kiss him. He massages my shoulders, until I break away from him.
“Make me feel the real you again, Aiden.”
He nudges my head to the side so he can pepper my neck with soft kisses as his hands move lower. He cups my breasts lightly, softly running his thumbs over my nipples. He still has the bandages on his hands, and the roughness of the gauze against my skin feels so good, and his fingers feel so much like him that I can’t stop the moan from coming out of my mouth. He caresses me gently for several minutes before gently pinching my nipples. I arch into his hands, and he gets a little more aggressive. I’ll be the first to admit that I have tiny titties, but he’s never made me feel inadequate, worshipping them like they’re Double Ds.
“I love your tits, Doll. Fucking love them.”
I turn my face to capture his mouth as I tilt my body, letting him know I want his hands lower. He takes the hint, and moves them down to trace my ribs with his fingers, before running them over my hips. He tickles my belly button, making us both laugh, and then his mouth reclaims mine as he slides one hand over my ass and one over my folds.
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