Page 50 of Entangled in Them

I caught his collar and yanked it down, giving me a better look. I knew what those marks looked like. I’d had enough men’s hands around my throat over the years. Sometimes, it had only been a kinky thing—them wanting to pretend they were strangling me during sex, or they wanted to try out some breath play—but occasionally they’d meant to kill me, and if someone else hadn’t intervened at the right time, that was exactly what they’d have done.

Kodee tugged himself out of my grip, and the collar flipped back into place, hiding the worst of the marks. Why did I get the impression he was embarrassed or ashamed?

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a drop that went a little wrong.”

“Someone hurt you.”

“It’s fine, Rue. Seriously. I’ve had a lot worse.”

How was it that having had worse in the past was supposed to make whatever you were currently experiencing better? Was there ever a limit to that? If your entire family and home was wiped out in an earthquake, did it mean that whatever happened to you after that simply had no meaning? I wondered at what point I would start feeling that way. I’d already had plenty of terrible things happen to me—from my mother selling me off at a young age, at first hour by hour, then day by day, until she eventually never returned for me—to all the times I’d been passed between men in barter for stolen goods or weapons. Had my price increased over time, due to my experience? Or had I actually decreased in value since men preferred for their women to be untouched and yet somehow still experienced? Maybe it was a combination of the two that had kept my price high. Even though I was far from inexperienced, I gave the impression of innocence and vulnerability, and men liked that about me.

“You can’t go around letting people hurt you,” I told Kodee.

“I don’t let them,” he replied but didn’t meet my eye. “It just happened.”

Worry wound through me. “What if something worse happens? I’m not sure Ryan and Dillion would cope without you.”

He eyed me curiously. “You worry about how they’d manage if I wasn’t around.”

“Of course. I can see they need you.”

“What about you, Rue? Don’t you need anyone?”

I shrugged, the question embarrassing me. “I’ve never been able to need anyone.”

There had never been anyone in my life that I’d been able to rely on. I’d learned from an early age that even when you cried and were scared, it didn’t mean anyone was going to help. My mother had forgotten me for days at a time when I was only a small child and had gone off and gotten wasted with her friends, leaving me to fend for myself. I’d drunk water from the bathroom sink and climbed onto the kitchen counters to raid the cupboards for crackers and any other food she might have left behind, which was never much. I’d taken myself to bed and told myself stories about princes who came to take young, desperate girls away from a life they’d never asked for, and then cried myself to sleep. Sometimes, when I woke, I’d find my mother had come home at some point during the night. She might have made it to the couch, or occasionally I’d find her in bed with me, her skinny arm thrown over my waist. She’d always smell bad—of vomit and urine—and even though I was glad to have her home and know she was safe, a part of me also wished she was someone different.

“It’s not good that you let someone hurt you,” I told him.

He gave me a pointed look. “Do you ever listen to your own advice?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

He gave me a rueful smile and then nodded back to the dessert we were making. “Come on. This isn’t going to make itself.”

Kodee emptied cream cheese and cream into a large bowl and handed me a whisk. “Ready to use a little elbow grease?”

“Sure.”

I got the whisk in my fist and proceeded to stir the mixture. The cream cheese was still solid, so I clenched my teeth, trying to get it to mix with the liquid cream.

“Not like that,” he told me, laughing at my struggle. “Like this.”

He took the whisk and demonstrated the hand movement.

“You mean like this?” I said, taking it back and doing the more exaggerated swirling motion with the whisk. Only I’d been a little too vigorous and a big blob of the cream and cheese mix flew out of the bowl and landed on his cheek. I stared at him and bit my lower lip. He looked up, both eyebrows raised, and then swiped the blob off with his finger.

“I hope you didn’t do that on purpose?”

I giggled and pulled a face.

He held out his finger, wiggling it in my face. “I think I should make you eat this now.”

“No,” I squealed and set down the bowl to run away. As I turned, he grabbed me by the waist and yanked me back into him. I was facing away from him now, and he reached around me, still threatening me with the blob of cream combination on the end of his fingers. I shrieked and laughed, trying to wriggle out of his grip, but the more I wriggled, the tighter his hold on me became.

He swiped the cream down over my lip.

I’d teach him.

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