Page 61 of Edge of Desire

In the end, I told her everything about me, every gruesome detail about prison. She cried and held me as she comforted me. I bared my soul to her as I had done to no other and it was freeing. Unlocking those memories I had buried for so long was so liberating that it was strange at first. I hadn’t felt this free in ages that it took time to adjust to it.

We’d been here three months when one night we sat around the fire and I couldn’t stop myself from asking her, “Why did you not ever judge me?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you found out about me being in prison? You knew what they’d done to me.”

“Well, yeah, but it wasn’t like you wanted it, Preston. Why would I judge you for that? It was forced upon you. You were raped. Remember, we discussed this a while ago. You said yourself that if I had been raped, you wouldn’t hold that against me.”

“But, Avery, it’s different because you’re a woman.”

“What difference does that make? Rape is rape, no matter who it happens to.” She picked up my hand and kissed the palm of it. “I’m not sure where this double standard of yours came from, but you need to get that notion out of your head. I’d like to ask you something. A while back, you wondered why I had such a tough time with my body, why I was so shy and all. Well, I’d like to ask you why you feel so inferior about something that was forced on you.”

She looked at me with her not blue/not green eyes and I had to be honest with her.

“Because like I told you before, everything they did to me made me feel so damn dirty. It doesn’t matter that it was forced. It still makes me feel that way. I’ll always feel that way, Avery, and I’ll never think I deserve you.”

“We’re quite the pair, then, aren’t we?” she whispered, right before she kissed my mouth, running her tongue across my lips.

“There’s something else you need to know, and I hope to God you don’t hate me for this.”

Giving me one of her million-dollar smiles, she said, “Like I could ever. What’s so damn important that you’ve interrupted a kiss? You know how I love to kiss you.”

“I’ve been less than honest with you.”

She pulled away from me and still had a half smile on her face. “What do you mean?”

“About our situation here.”

“I’m not following.”

I looked down and then back at her eyes. Taking a deep breath, I plunged in before I lost my nerve. Hurting her was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was afraid I had gone too far and there was no stopping it now. “We’ve been out of danger for quite some time now.”

“You mean with the cartel?”

“Yes.”

“How long is quite some time?” she wanted to know.

“Since a few weeks after we got here.”

Dead silence. Nothing. No movement, no yelling or screaming, nothing at all.

“I see,” was all she said. And she responded in a very small voice, quite unlike the Avery I was accustomed to.

“It that all you’re going to say?”

I watched a thousand different expressions drift across her face, but none of them settled down long enough to stay.Her throat worked feverishly, as she tried to swallow. Whether she was attempting to hold back tears, I couldn’t tell.

In a strangled voice that drove a knife deep into my heart, she whispered just one tiny word. “Why?”

“I was selfish and madly in love with you. I wanted to spend time alone with you to see if there was the slightest chance of us being together. I thought if we had sufficient time together, perhaps we could make a go of it. When I saw how much you loved it here, it gave me hope. It was wrong and I know that now. I’m sorry.”

“Is that supposed to make it better? Is that supposed to make me feel good or something? You lied to me. You falsified things. You made me think my life and your life, not to mention Justin and Caroline’s was in danger. For weeks I lay awake at night and worried about you. I worried about Justin and Caroline. You destroyed my life. My job. I have no home now because of what you did.”

“I’m so fucking sorry. But you’re wrong. You do have a home. With me. I’ll take care of you. Always.”

“Is this some kind of a twisted joke? Because if it is, it’s a poor attempt at one. I don’t want to be taken care of. I’ve never wanted to be taken care of. I want to be self-sufficient. I want to earn my own way in the world and not be dependent on others. You stole all that from me. And you made me believe you loved me and then you made me fall in love with you.”

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