Oddly, she found that she needed to show him that his confidence in her ability to share was not misplaced. That she trusted him…
Suddenly, something clicked that she had not realized before. “Pedro was not in control of himself at all that night.”
“No, any man who would sink so low as to rape a woman has zero self-control.”
Until now, despite many counseling sessions at uni where she was told over and over it was not her fault, she had always felt that the rape had happened because of her actions. The “if I had or had not done this, then that would not have happened” messages had consumed her for the past five years. The guilt and shame had eaten her alive.
Instead, comparing the monsters to someone noble and self-assured like Lucas made it clear the rape was all about those beasts trying to brutally dominate her body and mind because they had no control over themselves.
From this night forward, she refused to surrender her own power to her fears.
“What are you feeling now?”
With Lucas’s encouragement and support, she would take baby steps until she could achieve that goal instinctively without having to remind herself.
“That I no longer wish to be afraid, no longer wish to go through life holding back, always thinking the worst of every man. Look at you. I have never felt more comfortable with any other man, and yet I have continually expected the worst of you without any reason to do so.”
She met his gaze and he grinned. “You don’t know how good that makes me feel to know you trust me.”
“You have never done anything to shatter my trust, and we have been in much more compromising situations than I was in that night at the cantina.”
His thumb stroked her cheekbone, and she fought the urge to melt into the palm of his hand. He made her feel safe and cherished. Her nipples hardened again, though, and she pulled away. But she should not tempt him or fate. The sooner she finished telling Lucas the story, the sooner he could go back to bed in his studio, and they could both sleep.
For some reason, the thought of him being so far away caused the fear to surge into her chest again. What if the events of that night returned in her dreams after talking about them so much?
“Will you stay in the house with me tonight, Lucas? I am afraid to be alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Sweet Pea. I’ll stay as close as you need me to be tonight.”
Again, she was afraid her words sent the wrong message about what she wanted. “Is the couch comfortable?”
He chuckled. “Not too bad.”
“Good. I will sleep there, and you can have your bed back.”
“Cassie. Look at me.” The stern tone in his voice surprised her. She met his gaze, as if she had any other choice. “We’ve been over this before. You’re my wife. You’ll sleep in this bed as long as you’re staying here.”
“I just hate—”
“Tell me what happened after you returned to Pedro’s table. Keep your eyes on me. I think you’re reliving the nightmare every time you close them. I might be able to keep you grounded in the moment and remind you that’s all the past.”
Apparently, as far as he was concerned, the sleeping arrangements had been determined. End of discussion. Not that either of them would be sleeping much tonight, she surmised. Once she had opened the door to the past, there would be no putting the monsters back into the closet.
He continued to speak softly. “I’m here, baby girl. I’m not letting those men or anyone else hurt you ever again if I have anything to say or do about it.”
A calm came over her as she stared at Lucas. The words tumbled out. “Pedro ordered another beer, and then they decided they wanted to play a game of pool in the back. He promised me he would take me home after the game.” Her chest burned, reminding her to breathe. “They suggested some version of strip pool or something. When I refused, they…”
Cassie grabbed onto his shirt and buried her face in his chest, gasping for air. Breathe.
Soap.
Leather.
Lucas.
He took her arms and set her away from him. “Cassie, open your eyes.”
She shook her head, not wanting to see blame or judgment there. “Oh, Lucas. Do not make me say the words!” Tears trickled from their corners as she fought for composure.
“Darlin’, you’re gonna feel a whole lot better when you say those words. But it has to be your choice. If you don’t want to say anything more, then don’t.
Too quickly the images flashed across her mind.
Hands.
Stench.
Pain.
She wanted to be rid of the memories. The pain. The shame.
“I’m not going anywhere. Hell, I could hold you like this all night and die a happy man. Why don’t you try and relax against me?” He placed his hand against the side of her head and guided her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder.
When she began trembling, Lucas’s arms wrapped around her, but he could not pull her back to the present. Her stomach lurched, sending bile rising into the back of her throat. She tried to push away from him, fearing she would vomit on him if she did not tamp the evilness back down deep inside, but he continued to hold her.
“I’m here. I have you, Cassie. You’re safe now.”
“I am going to be sick! Let me up!”
“You sure it’s not the words trying to come out?”
Oh, Goddess. Yes! How did he know? If wrong, she would have been sick all over him.
She groaned and met his gaze once more. She did not want to infect him with these evil words, but she was losing the battle to control them. “I cannot hold them back any longer, but I do not wish for you to hear them!”
“You speaking the words is going to be harder on you than hearing them will be for me. I think you need to get those words out. Now. Tonight. Don’t hold back on my account. I can take anything you have to say. What I can’t take is seeing how this is eating you alive, Sweet Pea.” He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
She shuddered as she tried one last time to cram the ugliness back down inside.
“I’m here, Cassie.” He whispered the words, but they drowned out the Spanish words screaming in her mind from that night. “It sounds like you’re on the verge of letting go of something that’s needed to come out for a long time.”
I cannot hold them back any longer!
“Come on. You can do it.”
The assurance and faith he showed in his eyes broke the dam. “Pedro went first.” Her words were barely a whisper, but she would not repeat them. “He took my virginity while Luis and Diego held me down on the pool table.”
“That’s it, baby girl. No wonder the thought of playing pool the night of the avalanche sent you running. I’m so sorry I suggested it.”
“How could you know something that depraved was in my past?”
“Remember, they were the depraved ones. Not you.” He stroked the creases from her forehead. “I take it Karla knew by the way she tried to steer me off the idea of playing pool.”
She nodded. “Some of it. I spared her the ugliest details. No one needs to hear those.”
“Maybe you need to say them out loud anyway. If not to me, then to someone you trust enough.” The calmness in his voice, despite the anger that seemed to be seething beneath the surface, made it easier for her to continue.
“Angelina knows a little bit, too, but Kitty, God, if she had not been there for me when I returned to school at Columbia that fall, I do not think I would be alive today. So many times during those months before I told her, I was on the verge of suicide.”
“Thank God she was there for you.”
“I think Mama Quilla brought her to me. Just as she brought you to me at a time when I needed a new friend.”
Unable to hold herself upright any longer, she lay against him. His heart pounded against her cheek as he stroked her hair.
He said nothing for a moment, and then, “I’m sorry your first time ha
d to be with animals like that. I understand now why you feel that having sex is such a repulsive act.”
Pedro and his friends were not only her first but would also be her last. She would never go through that horrific, pain-filled, degrading act again. Never again.
Anger and more details boiled up despite her efforts to bring an end to this discussion. “Pedro rutted me like an animal. I did not think he would ever stop, that it would ever end.” Her stomach clenched again remembering. “But I soon learned he was not the worst of the three.” Her next breath rasped against her throat. How could she reveal more?
“That’s it. Let go of it, darlin’.”
Lucas was right. He had not heard the worst yet. She breathed heavily and then decided to spew out the words. “Diego shook a bottle of beer and rammed it far inside my vagina, letting the contents erupt. I guess it was his idea of a douche to wash away Pedro’s semen and my blood.”
For a moment, his hold on her tightened to the point she could barely breathe. Had she said too much? But he spoke in the same calm voice, and she relaxed. “He was the douche, Cassie. No wonder you steered clear of men so long. That three of the most heinous monsters would all come together in one night to do such despicable things to you…” His hand shook although he continued to caress her hair.
He took a deep breath himself.
I am sorry, Lucas. You asked me to tell you and now I must keep going.
“I was raped in every opening.” She swallowed, remembering how raw her body had been for weeks after. Sometimes even today she felt the pain as if it had happened recently. “When they finished, I could not move. I lay there on that table, broken and bleeding, hoping to die.”
He rested his chin on the top of her head and gave her the courage to continue once more.
“I do not know how long it was before…the owner of the bar found me and drove me partway home.” She had forgotten about his role in this until now. For years, she had remembered it as having walked the entire way home. Of course, that would have taken her days, even if she had not been raped that night. “He called me a puta and told me to stay away from his establishment in the future.” Hot tears spilled from her eyes. The man had only added to her feelings of shame.
“Yet another man who failed to do the right thing and protect you that night.”
She shivered and could no longer feel his arms around her anymore. “Hold me closer, Lucas.”
Without a word, he pulled the bedspread around them and held her body in his tight embrace, resting his chin on her head again, creating a cocoon of protection around her much like the white light she surrounded herself with before meditating.
Tears continued to flow unheeded as she picked absently at the tufts on the chenille bedspread. While there were other details she could share, she chose to let him fill in the blanks. No further words waited to explode from her. She had revealed more to Lucas than anyone else. She had never been able to tell such things to Kitty, fearing the truth would scare her friend away from men for the rest of her life, too.
“I’m proud of you, baby girl.”
She sat up and met his gaze. “Proud?” That was the last thing she expected him to say. “Why?”
“You not only survived that brutal attack, but you went on to make a life for yourself. A lot of people crumble under a burden half that heavy, but you didn’t give up.”
But she had! “I have lived in fear every day since. I would not have survived if not for Kitty. I am not brave at all. Just more afraid of killing myself than of existing in this hell. Thankfully, the fear has lessened over time.”
“But you kept putting one foot in front of the other and continued to move forward. You survived. That’s the main thing. But persevering, well that takes added courage.”
Exhausted, she laid against him again. She had survived, not just that awful night, but all the nights since then.
Being held in his arms like this, telling him things she had never shared with anyone else, she was thankful he had not judged or rejected her.
He believed her.
For the first time in a very long time, she felt validated.
Sheltered, protected, and secure in Lucas’s arms.
In his home.
In his life.
* * *
She’d surprised the hell out of him by revealing as much as she had so quickly. He’d expected an all-nighter until she became worn down enough she could no longer resist opening up.
Now it was time for both of them to move forward. With any luck, side by side. First, time to process some things.
“What made you trust me enough to sit on my lap tonight?”
She plucked at the bedspread a moment before answering. “I have seen how gentle you are with my alpacas. O’Keeffe and Picasso gave you very high praise, too.”
He still couldn’t fathom that she talked to their animals like a real-life Doctor Doolittle. Better yet, more like that Buck guy, the world-famous horse whisperer.
“Anyone who loves defenseless animals that much and can be so gentle with even the most wounded ones would never be cruel to me.”
“Animal owners sometimes abuse or neglect them, too.” He needed no reminders of that beyond the horses in his barn and corral.
“But that just proves they are not animal people and shouldn’t have them in their lives in the first place. Lucas, you truly love every living creature. I saw that, too.” She plucked at the blanket some more. “Besides, with you, I forget you are a guy.”
Okay, Denton, that’ll teach you not to push for more.
She sat up and met his gaze, her eyelashes matted in spikes from crying, but no more tears spilled. “I mean that in the very best way, of course.”
His ego couldn’t take much more of her good intentions, but she looked so hell-bent on not making him feel bad that he couldn’t help but grin. She smiled back. Such a beautiful, innocent smile. He pretty much didn’t care what she said about him now as long as she kept sharing her smile.
“Around most men, I am withdrawn and terrified. But you are different, well, once I came to know you better. You do not intimidate me. Any longer. You make people around you comfortable, often in situations where they feel anything but. You have a gift.”
Wow. She just blew him away. “That’s just about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.” On impulse, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. When he leaned away, her eyes opened wider, and she lifted her finger touching the very place his lips had been. His lips tingled from the oh-so-brief contact.
“A kiss on the forehead is very intimate, more so than one to the lips.”
Seriously? He’d gone for that spot because it seemed less threatening. The lips, well, he didn’t even want to think about kissing her there. Maybe all these years of sensual deprivation had Cassie’s circuits crossed.
He wondered what would turn her on.
Cool it, Denton.
Kissing Cassie on the lips would have made both of them uncomfortable albeit for very different reasons. Still, she wanted to talk about kissing. He could indulge her.
“Why is that, Sweet Pea?”
“It is where the Third Eye is located.”
He glanced up at her forehead. “The third what?”
“Eye.” She shrugged. “It is a mystical belief. When I meditate, it is the place from which I actually ‘see’ the images I receive. But even when my other two eyes are open, it is very much an active source of insight, just not of physical sight. Do you not feel something special there?”
“I’ve never really paid attention to it before.” Sure, sometimes there was a tension there, but he just figured it was the onset of a headache.
“Maybe if I kiss you there you will see what I mean.”
Darlin’, you can kiss me anywhere you’d like.
Just don’t scare her away by saying some asshole thing like that out loud, Denton.
“I guess in the name of science, we should give it a try.” He hoped he
didn’t come across as lascivious but grinned anyway. When he saw her reluctance, he figured she planned to back away from her offer. Then she surprised him and placed her hands on his shoulders and pulled him toward her. He closed his eyes, well, the two he knew about. She kissed his forehead.
Hot damn.
His body tingled in a weird way, moving into his chest and shoulders. A memory crowded out what should have been a tender moment between him and this beautiful woman. “My mom used to kiss me there, especially when I’d had a run-in with my dad over a lost game.” Sweet to remember his mother trying to make him feel better, but Momma sure killed the moment.
She smiled at him. “Exactly. She wanted you to feel secure and loved, I am sure. Do you still feel the imprint of my lips even after the kiss?”
Damn right. He nodded. “Yeah. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy…” His grin widened. At least his focus had returned to the girl on his lap.
“When you kissed me a few minutes ago, Lucas, a sense of well-being came over me. Thank you for that, especially after…”
She closed her eyes, and he pulled her against his chest again.
“You’ll always be safe with me, Sweet Pea.” Sitting like this with her filled something that had been missing in him, too, even if it killed him not to try to ignite something more carnal between them. So what if they never went beyond being friends? He could share moments like this—the intimacy he’d asked for—the rest of his life and still be happy.
Okay, his cock had a mind of its own. But she didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t want to ruin this moment. How many men were lucky enough to have a girl who needed him, if to provide nothing more than comfort and security?
“Lucas, I think I will be okay to go back to sleep now. You should try to sleep, too. You work so hard, and having me and my alpacas here just add to your burden.”
“I don’t require a lot of sleep, and you’re no burden at all, Sweet Pea. I like having you here. I’ve missed you something awful since I left your place.”
Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to put you down just yet.
Who knew when the walls would go back up and she’d distance herself again? “I know you have to head to Denver this weekend, but you can count on me while you’re here. I’ll sleep in the house to be close by until we know the anniversary memories have passed. I don’t want you facing those moments alone. I’ll be right outside this room on the couch.”
Nobody's Dream (Rescue Me Saga #6) Page 40