Page 48 of Freedom Fighters
Chapter Nine
It wasn’t just sex this time. Carmen couldn’t define why it was different. It simplywas.
She still felt the same aching need and Garrett’s hands and mouth still felt as heavenly as the first time he had used them on her. She could see he was smiling as he worked. He liked to make her squirm even though she denied she did anything so inelegant. Truthfully, he made her wriggleand arch, moan and scream, more than any other man.
She always wanted more, no matter how satiated he left her. Even when she was falling asleep, drained from multiple orgasms, she wished she had the energy to reach for him one more time.
“Look at me,” Garrett said.
Carmen opened her eyes. He was holding still above her and as she looked he leaned down and kissed her. He moved, not hurrying,but not driving her crazy with super slow torture, either. It was nice. Very nice.
After the pleasure had dissipated, Garrett lay back on the mattress and drew her to him, so her arm and leg draped over him and her head was on his shoulder. “You’re exhausted. You just don’t know it yet. You used up a lot of energy today.”
“I slept all afternoon,” she reminded him, then yawned hugely, her eyeswidening. The yawn had come from nowhere.
“Uh-huh.”
“Hate you,” she murmured, running her fingers idly over his shoulder. The tips bumped over one of the white circle scars and she drew them back again, feeling the slight depression it had left in his flesh.
“That one was a cigar.” His voice was soft. His tone casual.
Horror spilled through her. Carmen fought not to react or show her feelings.Hiding her reaction was instinctive. If she responded strongly, he would clam up again. She swallowed. She was wide awake now. She slid her finger around the circular edge of the scar. “They used a lit cigar on you?”
“The smaller ones were cigarettes.” His voice was neutral, without emotion, yet she knew he was holding all the emotion back, just as she was.
She let her fingers drift up to hisface, to the white scar under his beard. “And this one? Cigar, too?”
“A big, fat corona.” He paused. “It hurt like crazy. It all hurt. Yet the only thing I could think of when they used that one was that the stench was driving me mad.”
Carmen gritted her teeth, to hold back her moan of horror. She pushed herself up on to one elbow and looked down at him. His eyes narrowed as he stared back intothe past.
“And this one?” she asked, touching the scar below his throat, the one visible inside his shirt collars.
“That was a scrape, when they dragged me across the floor. There was a piece of timber on the floor they pulled me over. They had been beating me with it. It got caught under my chin and took off the top layer of skin.”
They had been dragging him face down.
Carmen bit her lip.She made herself slide her fingers over to the jagged scar on his hip. “This was a knife, wasn’t it?”
He nodded, his chin moving a fraction of an inch.
“And your back?” she asked, although she already knew. She wasn’t sure why she was making him catalog every wound, except that he had started it and her gut said she should keep it going. She didn’t want to. She felt a desperate anger mixingwith her horror and sadness. It was helping Garrett in some cathartic way, though.
“The thicker ones are from a raw leather strap, as stiff as a board. The thin ones…” He sighed. “One of them had a riding crop.”
Before she could blink them away, tears rose and spilled. They were hot and made her eyes ache.
Garrett said, “It was all over and done with, a long time ago.”
“Not for you, it wasn’t.”She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She thought of the night she had found him drinking alone in the dark. If ever there was a man still struggling with demons, it had been Garrett that night. “You still live through it. Over and over.”
“Not since you came.” His voice was soft.
That made her cry harder. “Don’t say that,” she said brokenly.
“Why not?”
“I’m nothing, Garrett. I’m thespoiled only daughter of the former President. You’ve seen the press. I’m a walking cliché. Everything they say about rich and famous peoples’ kids, that’s me.”
