Page 9 of Damaged

Silver.

Like his eyes.

I mentally wished for Silver to open his eyes at that moment just so I could confirm that they were really as stunning as I remembered them to be.

Returning to my conversation with Jace, I said, “He wouldn’t say how he knew you guys.”

“He saved Willa. We owe him everything,” Jace told me.

Jace’s words brought me back to the present. I’d already known that, though the reminder had me wanting to ask a million questions, but when I looked over at Silver for what had to be the hundredth time, I knew I didn’t want Jace to be the one to provide those answers. I forced my eyes back to the road and allowed the momentary distraction from the physical pain to fade away.

Pain was good.

Pain reminded me of who I was now, not who I’d been. I steeled my voice and quickly said, “I’ll call you when we get to my house, Jace,” before hanging up the phone and turning it off.

I didn’t allow myself to look at my passenger again. I’d keep my end of the deal and take him to my house and give him the money he needed to go wherever it was he wanted to go, but that was it. Tomorrow he wouldn’t be my problem anymore. Jace would be pissed, but the bottom line was that if Silver had wanted to stay where he was safe and cared for with the choice of any future he wanted, he wouldn’t have left that lodge with nothing but the clothes on his back.

Silver wanted to be left alone.

Something I knew all too well.

Twenty-four hours and we’d both get what we wanted.

Twenty-four hours.

It was nothing. No fucking problem at all.

I nodded to myself even as my inner voice called me out on my thoughts with one word.

Liar.

Chapter 4

SILVER

Silver.

Silver.

Ivan’s voice was raspy as his hot breath bathed the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck. I didn’t move because I knew it would be over soon. When he said my name like that…

“Silver, wake up, sweetheart.”

I sucked in a breath because Ivan had never called me that. I hadn’t known that Ivan’s so-called endearments had been ugly ones until I’d started using his computer to look up some of the names he’d called me. It had taken me weeks to even figure out how to use the internet, but when I had, it was like I’d walked into a whole new world, and I hadn’t really cared that the names Ivan had called me most definitely weren’t sweet or romantic.

At first, I’d never risked more than spending twenty or thirty minutes to explore all the internet had to offer because there were times when Ivan would expect me to be lying next to him so he could fuck me again. But as he'd aged and especially once his mind had started to be less clear than it had once been, a little alcohol and the handful of pills he’d consumed like candy usually meant I’d had hours, if not all night, to learn about the world outside my own before crawling back into bed with the heavyset man.

I’d always made sure to be in bed as dawn broke because that was when Ivan would pull me against his sweaty, dirty body and force his morning erection into me with only a little of his spit to ease the way. Afterward, he’d lumber to the bathroom to relieve himself and forget my presence for a while, which I’d used to mentally distance myself from what he’d done to me. Even as his release had seeped out of my pained ass, I’d put the shame and hurt into that little part of my brain that would let me forget. Once I’d learned there was a life outside the only one I’d known from the moment my parents had handed me over to Ivan, it’d been easier to escape into my mind to a place where I could pretend I was safe and loved even as my body was being used in the most degrading ways.

Silver.

There it was again. Ivan most definitely had never called me any kind of name in a way that made a sliver of warmth unfold deep in my belly. I tried to hang on to the sensation as I waited for Ivan’s heavy body to roll off me so I could breathe more easily, but all I heard was my name being called over and over. I couldn’t stifle the cry of frustration as Ivan’s heavy body continued to press me into the mattress. Fear tore through me as the softening dick that was still buried deep inside me began to harden again. He never took me so fast again. Not anymore. I needed those moments after he pulled free of me and left the bed to find the mental strength to escape into my mind where I could put the encounter in the past and once again feel numb.

“Damn it, Silver, wake up!”

The words were like ice water being dumped on me. I gasped as I tried to sit up, but I was still being held down, this time from the front. Ivan had never taken me from the front.

The line between sleep and reality began to disappear when a gentle but deep voice said, “Hang on, I’ve got you.”

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