Page 70 of Beautiful Trauma
I furiously shook my head back and forth. “I won’t.”
“Please, Kellan.”
“Mila, you were just attacked.”
Her blue eyes turned stormy. “Trust me, I’m well aware of what happened.”
Wincing, I replied, “I’m sorry. It’s just considering your frame of mind, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“What do you know about my frame of mind?”
“I know how my sister felt, and I see the same signs in you as I did her.”
“But it didn’t get as far with me as it did with her.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I need to know if you want me as much as you did Mya.”
“You’ve said yourself that you’re one in the same.”
A single tear slid down her cheek. “Mya wasn’t tainted.”
“And neither are you.”
“But I am.”
As I stared at the intensity burning in her eyes, I knew she was right. “You’re right. You are.” When Mila’s mouth dropped wide at my declaration, I added, “At least in your mind you are.”
“What do you mean?”
With a groan, I jerked my hand through my hair. Was I really going to do this with her? I barely knew her, yet I was about to unburden a dark secret of mine.
But I had to be willing to try anything to help Mila.
“Although I’ve shared this with two other women, it never gets easier.”
Mila leaned forward on my lap. “What happened?”
“After my sister’s attack, I felt tainted. Even though I had been spared physically, I’d been emotionally fucked.” I sucked in a ragged breath. “Because of those feelings, I couldn’t sleep with a woman.”
She furrowed her brows at me. “You had no desire?”
With a mirthless laugh, I replied, “Oh no, I had the desire. I just couldn’t… physically do it.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
“Since I still woke up with morning wood, I knew it wasn’t a physical issue, but a psychological one.”
Disgust at what I’d been forced to be part of churned through me. “Every time I tried to be with a woman, I’d be right there in that vault having a part in Maeve’s desecration.”
Mila grabbed my face in her hands. “But that wasn’t your fault. You were forced to do that.”
“Sometimes I think…” My voice choked off as I fought not to cry in front of her. I’d already been made to feel emasculated enough because of what I’d been through.
Swallowing hard, I said, “Even after all this time, I still feel like I let her down. That I should’ve sacrificed myself to show her how much I was against what was being done to her.”
Tears pooled in Mila’s eyes. “Oh Kellan, no,” she murmured.
