Page 82 of Simon Says

“Do you trust me?”

“I’m starting to.”

“Startingto?” She yanked her hand away, but she was smiling, too.

Simon leaned forward and kissed her. “One step at a time, Dakota.” And while they were both stepping…Simon’s arm went around her. “About your marriage—I take it the honeymoon didn’t last long?”

“A few weeks, maybe a month.” As if they’d known each other longer, Dakota settled in beside him, putting her head into the crook of his shoulder. “We were poor, but at seventeen, who cares about money or material possessions?”

Most everyone he knew, regardless of age, but Simon didn’t say so.

“I had Marvin and for a while that seemed like enough. Then I realized what he expected from me, when I’d never had that many responsibilities. He insisted that I work, which was okay except that it wasn’t easy to get a decent job at seventeen. He helped me to fudge my age and get hired on at some seedy places. He also wanted me to keep our rundown apartment looking good, buy the groceries, do the laundry, have dinner ready for him every night, and…” She quieted, the words falling off into nothingness.

Without her saying it, Simon knew what Marvin had wanted: He’d expected her to keep him satisfied in bed.

He was glad that Dakota couldn’t see him or the anger in his expression.

“None of that washorrible,” she explained. “But he didn’t want me to visit my mother either because he knew she didn’t like him. I felt guilty about the last fight we’d had. I wanted to talk to her, to show her that I was doing all right for myself so she wouldn’t worry. And I wanted to see if she’d softened toward me at all.”

“Marvin refused to let you see her?”

She nodded. “We argued about it.” Agitated, Dakota shifted, looked up at him, then away. “I told him I was going to see her no matter what he said, and he slapped me. Not a punch or anything, but it blacked my eye. I didn’t want my mother to see that, so I didn’t go.”

Simon had expected physical abuse, but having it confirmed made his gut clench. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing at all. He knew the story was going to get worse, and he braced himself.

“After that first time, he lost his temper a lot, sometimes for no reason at all. Every time he got mad, the situation got worse. I realized that I’d made a colossal mistake. But after a few months, when I’d had enough and knew I had to leave, he…” Dakota faltered, drew another breath. She tilted her head back and locked her gaze with Simon’s. “He raped me.”

CHAPTER 11

SIMONwent cold inside.

Rushing into defensive speech, Dakota said, “I know, everyone thinks a husband can’t rape a wife, but—”

“I’m not everyone.”

She paused, and her small nod thanked him. “It wasn’t like being attacked by a stranger. I know there’s a difference, a huge difference. I really do. But Marvin made sure that I’d hate what he did to me. He deliberately made it an ugly punishment.”

Plain and simple, Simon wanted to kill the bastard. If Marvin Dream were to materialize right now, Simon would demolish him with pleasure.

“Afterward,” Dakota whispered, “when he finished with me and started to stand up, I was so furious, so sickened and so afraid and fed up, that I kicked him in the face.”

“Good for you.”

“I was still wearing my shoes.”

“I hope you broke his goddamned nose.”

“No. But I did bloody it. And seeing his own blood did something to Marvin. He went crazy. Crazier than I’d ever seen him.” Dakota sat up, moving away from Simon. “He stabbed me.”

A rush of heat chased away the chill of Simon’s anger.“What?”

“He had a switchblade that he always carried. Not a teeny tiny one, but not exactly a giant blade either. I’d seen it plenty of times because he’d get it out and show it off to people, or he’d just sit and polish it, sometimes for an hour or more.” Dakota twisted a little, lifted the hem of her sweatshirt, and showed a narrow scar on her left side below her ribs.

Staring at that thin cut, Simon’s vision blurred. “Jesus.”

So unemotional that it spooked Simon, she said, “That’s the worst one, and none of them are really bad.” Then she raised the sleeve on her right arm and showed another silvery scar on her forearm. “He got me here, too, and once on my thigh. After that, he just looked at me, like maybe he was shocked, too. He punched a hole in the wall and stormed out of the apartment.”

“The police—”

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