Chapter Sixteen
THE TIME TO tell Stone came sooner than she’d expected. Kory spent the night with him that night—managing great sex without having any breakdowns—and had fallen asleep in his arms, but her midnight cries awakened herself, Stone, and the dog. There was no way to pretend everything was okay when she awoke everyone screaming and crying in the middle of the night.
Yeah, another goddamned nightmare.
She’d awakened herself hollering at a bad guy who was no longer any threat to her, but in her dream, he’d felt so real again, and she’d felt vulnerable and helpless. She’d been unable to move, to get away from him, and he’d begun doing unspeakable things to her…until she’d finally managed to pull herself awake with her screams.
She sat up, feeling like she couldn’t breathe, and as soon as she was able to suck air into her lungs, tears started pouring from her eyes. She felt Stone’s arm around her shoulders then. “You okay?”
She struggled to find her voice. “I don’t know.” He pulled her into his chest as she tried to calm down.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
She nodded her head. She remembered visiting with Natalie and worried then that Stone might think she was some kind of nutcase. She was, really, and she never would have thought it until all this shit had started resurfacing. What the fuck?
She needed to be honest with him, because he was going to otherwise think she was completely insane. “I guess I have some things to tell you,” she said, sniffing.
He touched her cheek. “You feel up to talking about it?”
“Yeah.”
“I can make some coffee…but you’re not big into coffee, are you?”
She smiled, but she doubted he could appreciate it in that dark room. “I could go a cup if you make it.”
He chuckled and she felt him shift. In seconds, the lamp on his side flooded the room with light and he slid off the bed. She admired him from the back. The guy was seriously the most tattooed dude she’d ever met. He had a couple on his legs, but his back was covered, along with his hands, two full sleeves, his neck, his chest and belly…but not his dick. She was strangely grateful for that. She’d seen pictures online of guys who’d done that. She’d wondered if they had to be hard when they were tattooed (of course, silly, she thought) and, more than that, she was curious as hell how the tattoo artist felt about inking an erect penis. Maybe Stone could have tattooed his own cock, but still…
What was inked, though, made him look hotter than hell, and she felt so lucky to have him in her life. He was amazing and special and wonderful, and that he enjoyed spending time with her meant more than he could know.
He picked his jeans up off the floor and slid them up his legs. Once he’d zipped and buttoned, he asked, “You want a t-shirt or something?”
“Yeah, sure.”
She turned and slid her legs off the side of the bed, letting them dangle, while he got into one of the drawers of his dresser and pulled out a black t-shirt, one of several that looked pretty much the same, except that each had a different band on it. He walked over and handed her the shirt. Without even looking at it, she pulled it over her head and got out of bed. Stone pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest until he let her go and smiled down at her, kissing her on the forehead. Then he led her across the room and down the stairs, holding her around the shoulders the entire time.
Somehow, that gesture made her feel secure.
Loved.
Safe.
When they got to the kitchen, he pulled a chair away from the table. “Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll make some coffee. I have some hazelnut creamer that I think you’ll like.”
She smiled and while he filled the coffee pot with water, she looked down at the t-shirt. Guns N’ Roses. Ah. Stone didn’t stop being cool. She was already feeling better—warmer and more content—just from being around him.
He was taking his time moving around the kitchen. He reached into one cupboard and pulled out a package of Oreo cookies and set them on the table in front of Kory. She looked up at him and he grinned. “Coffee and cookies kick ass together.”
He walked back to the counter where the coffee pot was and pulled out a sugar bowl and a jar of creamer. He brought them to the table and said, “Yeah, so it’s powder, but trust me. It tastes really good.” Lady finally settled next to Kory on the floor and Stone walked over to the tall cupboard where he kept her snacks. She knew what he was doing and followed him, but she didn’t beg. He got out a dog biscuit and then squatted down. “Shake.” The little dog stuck out her paw and let Stone shake it before he held the biscuit in front of her mouth. Kory smiled. She was starting to love that little dog, and she thought it was so cute how Stone was with her.
He stood and turned to walk back to the coffee pot, but he noticed the look on Kory’s face. “What?”
She shook her head, her smile wide. “Nothing.”
He tilted his head at her but didn’t say a word. He took two coffee cups out of the cabinet and, once the pot sputtered, he poured coffee in both. He placed them on the table and then turned back and pulled two spoons out of the silverware drawer. Kory looked at the mug of steamy black liquid. She’d never liked coffee much, but she had to admit that the drink Stone had bought her at the coffee shop—a caramel macchiato, she thought he’d called it—had been pretty good. Maybe coffee was gross unless sweet.
He scooted his chair over so he was closer to the corner of the table, closer to her. He took the creamer and poured some into his spoon…once, twice, three times. Then he took the lid off the sugar bowl and scooped one spoonful into the coffee and stirred. He slid the mug in front of Kory and said, “Try that.”
She was skeptical, but as the steam wafted up to her nose, she had to admit it smelled good. Lifting a spoonful of the hot liquid to her lips, she blew on it and then took a sip. It wasn’t as sweet as the coffee at the shop had been, but it was pretty good. She nodded.
“What’d I tell ya?” Stone did the same thing with his cup and took a sip himself. Then he said, “Okay. You still feel like talking?”
Honestly…no. Kory didn’t want to talk about any of it—not with Stone, not with Natalie. She didn’t even want to think about it. She knew, though, that there was the problem. Hiding it, stuffing it in would make it worse. In fact, she was beginning to think that there were memories she’d either crammed deep down or had blocked out and, now that she was older, her brain decided it was time for her to deal with them. She also suspected that it might be something a little different, that Stone was the reason why all of it was coming to the surface…
Especially his tattoo gun.
It wasn’t his fault, but she knew she’d need to get through all this shit if she wanted Stone in her life. She took another sip of the coffee and said, “I don’t even know where to start.”
He leaned down a little so she’d stop staring at the coffee and look in his eyes instead. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want.”
“No…I need to.” She took another drink of coffee to wet her mouth, because it had grown suddenly dry. She took a deep gulp of air too, trying to find the courage to talk about something she hadn’t consciously thought about in years. She let the air out of her lips slowly, trying to figure out what to say, where to begin, how to say it. She decided to just start talking and let it spill out. “My mom…had this boyfriend. For a long time. His name was Art. I never knew my dad. Anyway, I was…about ten maybe, or eleven, when Art moved in with us. Before that, my mom had had boyfriends now and then, but nobody who’d hang around for very long. Anyway, this guy started out by trying to act like a dad. You know, telling me to pick up my room, do the dishes, shit like that.
“I guess I should mention that he was a tattoo artist.” Stone raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He brought his cup to his lips for another drink, but that was it. “He was an asshole, but I tried to keep to myself. You know, I’d stay in my bedroom or be outside playing with frie
nds. At first, if my mom was home, he wouldn’t say anything, but after a while, he started being an asshole in front of her, and she didn’t care.
“He was with us a long time. At least it seemed that way. I have too many sharp memories of him, but the first time I remember thinking things were even worse than I’d first imagined was one day near the beginning of summer. My mom had gone to work. I woke up late in the morning and went to the kitchen and made myself a bowl of cereal. He came in a few minutes later and sat next to me. I was trying to ignore him, just keeping my eyes glued to the bowl, you know? Then he finally asked if I’d heard him and my mom. I told him I didn’t know what he meant. He clarified then, asking if I’d heard them the night before. Had I heard them fucking, he asked, ‘cause he was givin’ it to her.” Kory had been trying to keep the memory at a distance, but it stirred up so many emotions inside that it was hard not to lose it. She managed not to cry, but she couldn’t look Stone in the eye. “He was such a fucking asshole.”
She couldn’t bring herself to talk anymore…not yet. The lump in her throat was too hard. She took a sip of coffee. “What was he trying to do?” Stone asked. “Do you know?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. About a week later, I was sitting in the living room and he came out of my mom’s bedroom talking about my nightgown. It went halfway down my leg, so it covered more than a pair of shorts, but he kept telling me I was tasty. Fresh vittles, I think he said. Fuckin’ perv.”
She blinked twice and looked at Stone. Yeah, Stone knew exactly what she was talking about, and she imagined he suspected what that asshole had done to her. He was being quiet, though, respectful and calm and silent.
Kory took another deep breath and looked at the wall behind Stone’s head. She couldn’t look him in the eyes for this, but she needed to say it, needed to acknowledge it. “He raped me, more than once, over that summer. I didn’t tell my mom for a long time, because he threatened to hurt me worse. He poked me with needles, sometimes hot, and he’d do shit with his tattoo gun too.” Kory sucked in a breath. Until she’d said it, she hadn’t remembered it consciously. She could envision it now, though—how he’d stand behind her with that gun and say horrible things, threatening things. He promised to hurt or kill her mom if she said anything, so, for the longest time, she didn’t. But he kept hurting her, and she wasn’t quite numb.
One night when Art had been off drinking with his buddies, Kory confessed everything to her mom, told her all that had been going on. She couldn’t take it anymore.
Kory hadn’t realized it, but she was spurting it all out at lightning speed, as though she had to get it out before it poisoned her. “She said I must have been imagining it all. Can you believe that? So my mom, a person who was supposed to be my ally, didn’t believe me. I told her I could show her my panties, where I’d bled on the sheets, and at first, she told me that was my period, natural and normal. I told her that wasn’t it, that he’d torn me and made me bleed, and she told me to quit lying about Art. He was a good guy, just down on his luck, and he wanted to be my daddy. My own mother.” That was it. She lost it for good and the tears streamed down her cheeks. Part of her wanted to run, to be alone to lick her wounds, but Stone pulled her into an embrace before she could protest. He held her head to his chest and stroked her hair while his other hand rubbed her back, comforting her as best he could.
She wasn’t going to say anything else, wasn’t going to tell him everything. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. She’d said enough for the time being. He held her until her sobs subsided and then said, “Damn, Kory, I knew you were tough, but I had no idea.” She looked up at him. “That’s what you meant when you said you were a survivor?”
Yeah…that was part of it. She managed a tiny nod and he kissed her forehead. Yes, she was a survivor, had been a survivor, but she was going to be a whole lot more. She just needed to figure out a way to let go of her past once and for all.
Chapter Seventeen
EVEN THOUGH KORY hadn’t told Stone the entire truth, she somehow felt better, stronger, more in tune with him and her own life afterward. If nothing else, the nightmares that had resurfaced wouldn’t seem so strange to him.
A few times, he insisted they not have sex, because he figured that that was part of Kory’s problem. Somehow, he was certain their intimacy was what was causing her nightmares, and Kory couldn’t convince him otherwise.
They might not have been engaging in regular sex, but she began spending the night at his house once or twice a week. He could have spent the night at her place too, but she’d never asked. Really, it seemed silly. She had a tiny bedroom in a small apartment she shared with two other young women and he owned a huge house that he shared with a dog. It made more sense for her to stay at his place.
That huge house…and she still hadn’t seen the basement.
She asked him again one night while he was making dinner in his kitchen. She was at the sink, washing and tearing up salad greens while he boiled homemade pasta at the stove. Kory was already impressed that he had another talent. At first, she figured he was the kind of guy who could make breakfast just fine but fail at all else, but he was continuing to amaze her. He denied it…but she could see the evidence with her own eyes.
He wasn’t perfect, though. She’d since discovered that he had a cleaning service. Then she didn’t feel quite so bad that she never made his bed but his always looked perfect.
The food was another thing entirely. She was watching him make it. He couldn’t say someone else had done it for him.
“This is the first time I’ve made spaghetti from scratch in a long time.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be able to make pasta to save my soul.”
He laughed. “Well, I have that pasta machine. That helps. My grandma used to make it all by hand.”
“Is that who you learned it from?”
“Yeah. Grandma made the pasta and grandpa made the sauce. I watched them enough to learn how they did it.” He dropped a few more strands of spaghetti into the boiling water, stirring them around with the pasta rake. “They were first generation immigrants from Italy. Moved here before they had kids. They both knew a little English before they got here, but they learned it pretty quickly, they said. Grandpa had always wanted to live here—the land of promise, he said.”
“That’s cool. I barely knew my grandparents.”
“They were my dad’s parents. My grandma passed when I was thirteen. My grandpa only lasted another couple of years after that. It killed him. My mom’s parents live on the east coast, so I only met them once or twice.”
“You don’t talk to them now?”
He shrugged and focused on the pot, fishing out strands of cooked pasta. “No. I don’t talk to any of my family nowadays.”
Kory had no room to talk…she didn’t talk with anyone considered family—not that she would want to. Her mother had pretty much wrecked any chance of a relationship with any of those people. Kory could remember her grandma, but the woman had died when she was still young. She had since wondered if the fact that her mother had no parents or close ties was why she’d been such a shitty parent herself. Whatever the case, Kory wasn’t about to judge Stone or even question his decision. She knew Tina and Lacey were tight with their parents, and Tina’s mom often treated Kory like another daughter, but it wasn’t the same.
They were quiet for a few minutes, and Kory’s stomach grumbled, smelling the sauce that had been simmering all afternoon and the fresh pasta intermingling together in his roomy kitchen. She started rinsing the cherry tomatoes in the sink so she could toss them in the salad and she knew she should look him in the eye when she asked the question, but she didn’t. “So what’s this huge secret, Stone?”
“What do you mean?”
“The one you have hidden in your basement. The one you’re not ready to tell me about.”
He plopped the rest of the pasta in the water, not looking at her either. “I’m still not ready to tell you, Kory.”
/> “Why not? I’ve told you some pretty harsh stuff about my life.”
He was quiet for a couple of minutes. “I’m glad you did…that you trusted me enough to tell me. That’s not it with me. I trust you. I just don’t want you looking at me differently once you know.”
She took a deep breath, tossing the salad together, and then started mixing the ingredients together for the dressing, using the recipe Stone had handed her earlier. “Why would I look at you differently? You know I—” Actually, no, he didn’t know how she felt about him, and it wasn’t until that second that she realized just how much she cared about him.
He didn’t catch her hesitation, probably because he was concerned. “Just give me a little more time, Kory. I trust you completely. I’m just not ready to share this.” He grabbed her hand, forcing her to look at him, and he consumed her in a kiss.
Fine. She could wait a little longer.
* * *
She didn’t have to wait too terribly long. It was August, before her birthday—hot and blazing, the summer’s final hurrah before letting go and allowing cooler temperatures to grace the land. Kory had been out of classes for a couple of weeks and was enjoying the break before starting the fall semester.
One Wednesday—her night off—she walked to the tattoo shop. Stone was expecting her, and she was going to spend the night that evening. She felt like they’d moved into more serious territory, because he’d bought her a few things to leave there—a hairbrush, a robe, razors, all the things she complained about forgetting to bring. They’d stopped by the drugstore one block away from the shop one Saturday and walked around, grabbing things here and there. The robe had been a surprise. Kory hadn’t been big on wearing them, but she realized it was probably because she’d never had one before.
When she arrived at the shop, Russell, not Richie, was manning the front counter. Russell was Stone’s friend, the guy who’d opened the shop in the first place, the dude known to customers as Six-pack. Kory had only seen him once or twice, mainly because he worked the earlier shift in the day. They had other tattoo artists in their business, but Stone and Russell were the main guys and the ones who kept everything going. Stone had introduced Kory to his friend a couple of weeks earlier, but she didn’t really know him well. He too was a good-looking guy, but Kory only had eyes for the guy she now considered her boyfriend.
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