Page 78 of Rebellion

She... she didn’t want to make any decisions, though. Tears slid down her cheeks.

“I get it, baby. I really do.” He brushed her tears away. “Just one more small decision, then, I’ll take them all away. You trust me to take care of you, to take over?”

She shook her head and his face grew pensive. “Fair enough.”

Then she nodded.

His lips quirked. “Right. I might need a few words from you, lass.”

“I . . . trust . . . you. But . . . don’t want . . . to . . . hurt.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. If at any time you need this to stop, if you need me to pull back, then you say Red. Can you do that?”

She guessed. She shrugged with a nod.

Colm didn’t look too happy at that though. What had she done?

“Or you tap. Tap my hand twice. Like this.” He grabbed her hand and tapped it twice on top of his. “Got it?”

She nodded. That wasn’t really complicated.

If she needed him to stop, she either said Red or tapped his hand. But she wasn’t quite sure why he’d want to help her.

“Why?” she whispered.

He cupped the side of her face. “Let’s not worry about that right now. You’re not worrying about anything tonight. I’m going to help you because I want to. And you’re going to let me because it’s what is best for you.”

She wanted to roll her eyes at him, but that would require energy she just didn’t have.

“First things first; we need to get you out of there.” He reached for her, but she flinched back instinctively, stifling a gasp of pain.

“That hurt you,” he murmured. “Your back?”

“S-sorry.” Sofia hadn’t meant to flinch away from him. Unfortunately, at this point in her life, it was just a trauma response. For the past few months, the bulk of physical attention she’d received was Oleg hurting her for one reason or another.

She didn’t believe for a second that Colm would hurt her physically, but that didn’t mean she could control her instincts.

And not only that, but there was also the fact that she was currently naked. Although her legs were curled up to her chest, covering her.

This can’t be the first time that he sees me naked!

She also didn’t want him to see the bruises that Oleg had given her.

Yeah, she sort of had a towel around her, but it didn’t fully cover her.

“Why are you apologizing, lass?” he murmured. “Unless you’re apologizing for hiding things from me. But that’s gonna take more than an ‘I’m sorry’ for you to apologize.”

“What?”

She hadn’t understood anything of what he’d just said. He wanted an apology for hiding things? What things?

He didn’t even know about the bigger lies, so what was he talking about?

And how more could she apologize than by saying sorry?

Did he want a gift basket? Muffins?

Hmm. This conversation was weird, but at least it had distracted her and pushed away the lingering panic that had been on the edges of her mind.

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