Page 123 of Redeemed

She tenses.

“Five.”

“Colton—”

“Four.”

“Please,” she whispers.

“Three.”

Haven fists the sheets and buries her face in the mattress.

“Two.”

She’s shaking her head, something she knows is futile by now.

“One.” I draw back, eyeing her ass.

“It’s always been forced,” she cries.

I freeze, waiting for her to elaborate, but silence fills the room, nearly suffocating me.“What?”

“I’ve never… I’ve never consented to sex. Was always forced into it. Colton, please. Please stop. I can’t take any more.”

“Every… every single time?” I ask, not in disbelief but in shock.

She nods, sniffling.

“How many times?” My voice dips dangerously low.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I stopped counting.”

“How many men?”

“Just one.”

“Was it him? The man chasing after you?”

There’s a beat of silence, but then she shakes her head.

Leaning over her, I untie the rope from her cuffs. Before she can try to get away, I’m kneeling beside her, my hand gripping her chin so she has to look at me.

“Are you lying to me?” I ask.

“N-no.”

I don’t believe her.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I grit out. “I would’ve—”

But I stop myself. She’s obviously talking about before we met. There was nothing I could’ve done.

“We both know it wouldn’t have mattered.” She’s shaking, an aftereffect of the flogging she just took colliding with what she’s confronting in her mind. “I tried, Colton. I wanted things to be different with you, I really did. But I—” Her voice breaks, and buries her face in the mattress.

I yank her head up. “No, don’t stop now. Tell me what the fuck you meant by that.”

“I wanted it with you. Wanted to let you in and have that closeness with you.” Tears fall onto her cheeks, and her bottom lip trembles. “But I needed patience. I needed someone to be gentle with me, someone who’d understand that I needed to take things slow. And you… I knew you couldn’t be that for me. Not for as long as I would’ve needed.”

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