My eyes flew open. I became disoriented. Fuzzy. Unclear. Flickering emotions cascaded through me as a whirlwind of terrible memories sliced through my soul. Shocked, panicked, unable to breathe, I shoved him off me and bolted off the bed. “You need to leave.”
“Elle?” he asked, clearly concerned.
Gasping for air, I didn’t answer him. I didn’t look at him. Instead, I grabbed my top and ran down the stairs as the first fifteen years of my life assaulted me. My father. My mother. The words I heard spoken through the thin walls. The crying. The yelling. The grunts and groans. It was too much.
“Elle,” he called again, right on my heels.
It was dark and my mind started to spin. I turned, backing myself up against the door. Frightened. Afraid. I just wanted him to stop.
The silhouette came closer. I put my hands out. “Please, leave me alone. I won’t do it again,” I cried.
“Elle, what’s going on?”
The voice had no shape.
White knuckled, I dug my fingers into the doorframe. “Please,” I begged. “Please leave me alone.”
“Not until you talk to me.”
The voice amplified. It sounded angry. His eyes flashed. He was a tough guy. Too tough to let a woman tell him no. Too tough to let a little girl try to stop him.
Every muscle in my body was taut. I stayed still. Very still. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. Maybe if I were quiet enough he’d just leave me alone. Leave her alone.
“Elle, it’s me. Logan. What’s going on? Where are you?”
I blinked as that soft voice broke through to me. “Logan?”
With tentative steps he approached me. His voice now soothing. “Elle, yes, it’s me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
My eyes began to readjust as I broke from the horror I dreamt about every day after my mother died and my sister left. “Logan,” I said again, needing to be sure it was him and not my father.
His fingers were on my face, stroking away my tears. “Yes, it’s me. Yes, it’s me. It’s me.” His voice broke as he repeated himself over and over.
I swallowed hard and tried to look away. He wouldn’t let me. He held my face in place. Shame and embarrassment were all I could feel. My heart pounded in my chest. What had I done? Why had I overreacted?
His fingers caught my chin as I managed to drop it. He wasn’t going to let me evade him. His touch soft and gentle, he lifted it and looked into my eyes.
I was begging myself not to burst into tears. I didn’t know if it was working, so I slammed by eyes shut. I couldn’t let him see me like this. This was the broken me. Not the one I had glued back together. Not the tough girl who didn’t let anyone in. I needed to get that girl back.
No one saw me like this.
No one.
Before I knew it, I was engulfed in his arms and my face was against his chest. “It’s okay, Elle. I’m here. You can talk to me.”
I pretended the water leaking from my eyes wasn’t tears. I pretended I was stronger than this person who needed this powerful man to hold her up. I pretended and pretended as he continued to soothe me, but then something happened—I felt safe.
And I let my barriers down.
When his constant soothing became too much to bear, I stopped pretending and collapsed in his arms, a sobbing mess.
Somehow we ended up on the sofa and I was curled in a ball against him.
“Elle,” he whispered after a long while.
I wanted to fade into the leather of the sofa and disappear. I couldn’t look at him. I was weak and pathetic. My father would be laughing at me if he could see me now.
When I didn’t respond, Logan lifted my head to look at him. His hands trapped my face and his eyes searched mine in a way they never had. “Tell me what happened. Did your father—” His voice cracked on the words, but I knew what he wanted to ask.
My throat was dry. “No, he never touched me, not sexually,” I croaked.
The sigh he made was more than audible. “Then tell me what happened to you. What did I do that triggered this? I need to know.”
With a deep inhale, I forced myself to be honest. Aside from Charlie, I’d never talked about this to anyone. I wanted to tell Logan. I sat up straight and looked at him. I wanted to at least appear strong when I told the sordid details of my past. “My memories start at age six. My father always worked late and my sister and I were usually in bed when he came home. Still, every night he’d lock our door, and the sound of the lock turning would wake me up. And then I’d hear him begging my mother to have sex with him. It didn’t matter if she said no; he wouldn’t take that for an answer. He was a sex addict. He needed it. She was the complete opposite and never wanted to give it. What I remember the most is . . .” I paused.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“Is him telling her that he needed to be inside her.”
Logan cringed and his face paled. “Oh God, Elle, I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t know. It’s not your fault. You see, I’ve had this rule when it came to sex—no talking. I’ve always made it very clear. But I didn’t tell you. To be honest, I didn’t want to tell you.”
His brows furrowed in confusion. “Why?”
Bracing myself, I pulled back and wiped the twin streams of water from my cheeks. “You were different.”
He hesitated but still asked, “In what way?”
I was barely breathing, I was so nervous. I was always petrified of telling anyone anything about myself. I wouldn’t blame him if he had run. The perversity of my situation wasn’t easy to swallow. But he hadn’t run, not yet. He was still beside me, waiting for what else I had yet to say. It shouldn’t have mattered to me so much that he was, but it did.
What would happen after I confessed my strange reaction to him? I had no idea. But Logan wasn’t mine and if he chose to leave, I wouldn’t blame him. What was coming sounded beyond bizarre, even to me. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
His gaze gently flickered across my face. It was the first time he’d looked at me that way—like he saw me, not the person I reminded him of. It was like he was looking at me, not avoiding her. “No, Elle. No I won’t. Tell me.”
Ironically, I had to avert my own eyes before I could say it. When I was looking anywhere but into his eyes, I finally spoke. “Since the very first time I had sex, I thought I was like my mother.”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “Asexual isn’t really the right word, but it’s close. Not really into sex. I had sex but I felt very little, nothing really. For years I was relieved, because at least I knew I wasn’t a sex addict like my father. One day I met a guy and he became my boyfriend. We were compatible in so many ways, especially in the way that sex was secondary. It wasn’t what drove our relationship. Our friendship did. But then we broke up and I fluttered again from man to man.”
Logan bristled slightly and I lifted my gaze. He was staring at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Why did you break up?” he asked.
I wasn’t ready to share that part of me—the most broken part—so I shook my head. “Things just didn’t work out,” was all I said. I wanted to finish this, to tell him what I was feeling for him, but he had to understand me first. “After Charlie was out of my life, I started searching for what it was about sex that could turn someone into the monster my father was. My sister was afraid of my father and even though she always warned me to be quiet on those nights I’d woken up, there were times I couldn’t stand to hear my mother cry or to hear my father’s demanding voice. And during those times, I’d scream and scream and scream until my father marched in the room and whipped me with his belt. I didn’t care, though, because after he was done with me, he’d also leave my mother alone.”
Logan drew in a breath before he pulled me to him. I wanted to shrug him off, but not as much as I wanted to feel the safety in his arms. He kissed my forehead. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Baby?
No one had ever called me by that term of endearment. The strength I had gathered was starting to weaken and I jumped out of his hold and to my feet. “I want to finish.”
Although he paled, he nodded in understanding.