Page 30 of Raw & Vulnerable

“Why do you keep looking at my door? Expecting to escape?” His voice is a little dry, yet sated.

Observant, as he always is. She sighs, not sure how much she wants to reveal. It’s not like they’re in a cute relationship, after all. They’re probably never doing this again. Which is sort of depressing; she rather enjoys him. “I have this…well, this OCD with doors and locks.”

“Yeah? You wanna lock my bedroom door, is that it?” He sounds amused, his hand in her hair. “Keep us safe, baby? I promise you, anyone that comes in here better be afraid for their lives, not the other way around.” She squirms in his arms and he teases, “That’s the charm of being in bed with a bad man, princess. I’m the scariest thing that will ever be in this room.”

Noticing the way her eyes continually drift, Gage laughs, tilting her chin up to face him. “Just go lock it, will you? Damn.”

She gets up, despite being stark naked. Quickly, she presses the lock on the door. “Sorry,” she says, embarrassed, rubbing the back of her neck, smiling, nipples perked in the chill air, her breasts high and tight on her chest. She can feel his leavings dripping down her thighs. “Just quirk of mine.”

He rolls his eyes at her. “Why?”

She crawls back into bed, fiddling with her fingers, wondering if she should say anything. “It’s just a holdover from something that happened to me a long time ago. I didn’t lock a door and…well…something bad happened. It’s really stupid, I know, but the compulsion is like a second skin. I just can’t shake it.”

When she’s in the sheets again, he spoons her from behind, nibbling her shoulder. “Impossible. Nothing bad happens to uptown girls like you.” He’s still teasing; he probably thinks it’s silly, that she’s just a silly naïve girl that grew up in a pearl clutching house.

Well. She did. That’s not the point.

“I don’t know if you lived around here, like thirteen, fourteen years ago, but there were some pretty bad strings of crime.” She feels like she needs to prove herself. Minnie doesn’t want to be viewed as silly, like she just happens to have this urge to lock things and check for safety ‘just because’. It’s embarrassing enough as it is, like she’s totally mental when she’snot. “We had some terrible armed robberies.”

He sighs into her hair, fingers tracing the curve of her hip. “So, you heard the news and got nervous? Princess-”

He’s not getting it.

“I got held hostage during one of the robberies.” Her voice comes out surprisingly bland, even as her memory fills with dark emotions from that very day.

Gage stills, his hand sliding off her hip. “…what?” She can’t see his face, but he sounds shocked.

“That’s generally everyone’s reaction.” Minnie says mildly, feeling some of her nervousness drip out of her limbs. It feels better, talking about it. “There’s me, minding my own business, reading a book in my dad’s car on an early Saturday morning. The car was still running when he and my sister got out to make a quick run. He told me to lock the doors, but I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was always in a book, you see. Daydreaming. Living in my own world. Oblivious. This guy just hopped right in, all dressed in black, mask, gloves and all. He zipped around the corner and picked up some of his pals.” She shudders, the fine hairs on her arms rising up. “I always remembering thinking they were going to kill me. If there’s anything to remember, it’s mostly that feeling.”

She shifts a bit in his arms so that she can stare up at the ceiling, counting the cracks, remembering.

He swallows loudly, throat working. For once, it seems that he doesn’t quite know what to say. “Did…they hurt you?”

“No. I mean, notreally. More mental than anything.” Minnie laughs a little bitterly. “I got smacked around a bit, which wassoterrifying because my father had never raised a hand to any of us growing up. I was petrified, I couldn’t believe a man would h-hit a girl right in the face.”

His body tightens around her, holding her, remaining quiet as she speaks.

Exhaling hard, trying to flush out her negative emotions, becauseway to go Minnie, you soured the mood. “One of the guys…he had this high scratchy voice. I remember him telling me they’d come back and kill me in my bed if I ever told anyone anything about them. As a young girl, that was the most terrible thing I could have ever imagined. Fast forward to now, I never even want to do anything other than my usual routine. I’m always afraid and I hate myself for it.”

This is the first big foray out of my little bubble and I’m probably screwing it up.

“Whatever happened to the guys who did it?” His hand is smoothing through her hair again. Slow. Measured. “Did you see their faces?”

“I don’t know.” She doesn’t like to think about it. She never heard about if they were picked up; her parents tried to keep control of her environment after that, to keep her calm. “They wore masks. Horrid masks. It’s just a blur. I remember a freaky clown design on the driver’s ski-mask, but not much else. That’s crazy, right? It’s like I blocked it out, even though I carry it inside me.”

He’s surprisingly quiet and the words sit between them, an odd tension brewing in the room. “You shouldn’t blame yourself,” he says finally, voice hoarse. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was. I should have locked the doors.”

“Princess, professional thieves know how to jimmy a locked car door open if they really want in. There’s nothing you could have done. I don’t…get why you’ve let this…affect your life.” He sounds bothered, honestly bothered. He doesn’t have the same confidence in his voice.

Minnie frowns at those ceiling cracks that she’s been counting. Thirteen. “I was a young, sheltered girl. Innocent. I wasn’t ready for life; not like that.”

Instead of replying, he simply gathers her up into his arms, turning her to face him. His eyes are solemn, dark. The strong lines of his face seem stern, intimidating in the low lighting as he looks at her. For a few silent moments, they stay like that, feeling each other breathe. Minnie listens to his heart, her ear on his chest. Her eyes flutter slightly, sleep at the edge of her mind. The sound of his breathing is calming, like a lullaby.

They stay like that for a while, resting, dozing. His heart is pounding still, even as hers begins to slow.

She wants to ask him.

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