Page 49 of Risks of Temptation
"Am I wrong?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"It was a man or a boy?"
She closes her eyes again. Her voice is barely audible. "A man."
A storm of rage twists in my gut. The killer in me wants to take care of whoever it was and show him zero mercy. I fear what she may say happened to her, but as sick as it makes me feel, I have to know. "What did he do, ma belle?"
"It's... I don't want you to know."
"Why?"
She buries her face again.
I move her onto my lap, hold her head to my chest, and kiss it. "Sometimes, when we talk about bad things, it makes it easier to deal with them."
"I already have. I have numerous therapy bills to prove it."
My insides spin faster. "Did it help?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. I'm still screwed up, aren't I?"
"How?" I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear.
"Look at my life. I'm... I'm all alone."
My heart bleeds. A woman like Emilia would have men dying to make her theirs, just as I crave it. "Why?"
"He haunts me. My skin crawls whenever anyone touches me," she admits.
Horrid thoughts about what he could have done to her get more intense. I curse myself for how I touched her the first night and in the river earlier today. Chills dig into my flesh. "Is it crawling now?"
She tilts her head up. "No. It doesn't with you."
"You would tell me if I needed to release you?"
Panic comes into her eyes. "Don't let go of me. Please."
I tighten my hold around her. "I'm not."
She delicately moves her hands to my cheeks.
"Did I hurt you...earlier today?"
She furrows her eyebrows. "When?"
"In the river."
Her face turns a deep red. "No." She drops her hands and gazes off to the side, blinking hard.
"Why are you upset by my question?"
"I haven't even explained what happened to me. I told you you're the only man who doesn't make my skin crawl, but you're assuming you hurt me...that I can't be treated like a woman."
I turn her chin toward me. "I didn't say that."
She closes her eyes, and tears fall.
