My jaw goes rigid as I stroke her hair back from her face. I slide a thick finger over her cheek, brushing away a teardrop.
“When you tried to wash my hair earlier…”
“Don’t worry about—”
“No, it’s…” Her eyes squeeze shut and she takes a heavy breath. “It’s not that I didn’t want you too. I’d love it if you washed my hair,” she chokes. “It’s just…”
I cup her face again, stroking her cheek with my thumb. Her hand wraps around mine, pulling me closer.
“When I was a sophomore in high school, I started going out with this guy, Tim Ciglione. He was a senior, and all the girls mooned over him. You know the type: rich, popular, captain of the lacrosse team. And smug about all of it.”
Her mouth tightens. Her eyes go a little darker.
So do mine as my blood begins to simmer.
"His dad had this huge, luxury penthouse with a rooftop pool and hot tub and everything, so when Tim decided to throw a party when his dad was going to be out of town, it was the party to be at. We’d only gone on a few dates, but he told me he wanted the night to be special, and that he really wanted me to be there so he could show me off to all the cool, popular people he was friends with. So, I arrive at the party and he’s instantly all over me. Smiling at me, laughing at all my dumb jokes, touching me…”
The beast inside me snarls.
“Giving me drinks. Soon, I was pretty drunk, and in the hot tub alone with him.” She looks at me furtively. “We… We’d never done anything besides kissing, so that’s what we were doing…just kissing.”
Rage explodes in my chest, but I nod for her to continue. I know in my heart that I don’t want to hear this, but just as I needed her to know about Amaya, she needs me to know about this.
If it goes where the acid in my blood thinks it’s going, though, I know there’s only one conclusion to this story: me, finding this Tim motherfucker, and putting him in the goddamn ground.
“Eventually, I told him I had to go home. But he started pushing for more. You know, wanting to put his hands under my bikini, that sort of thing.”
I see pure red.
“I said no, so he started pressing me to touch him. He…”
She swallows, looking away.
“You don’t have to tell me, babygirl.”
“Yes, I do. I want to.”
She takes a shaky breath.
“He pulled his dick out, grabbed my head, and tried to, like, guide it there.”
Mother. Fucker.
He’s a dead man. Fucking dead.
“When I said no, he pulled harder. When I tried to move away, he…” She grimaces. “He pushed my head underwater and tried to force his dick into my mouth.”
She shudders in my arms. I shove aside my rage as I hold her tight, wrapping my arms around her as she cries softly into my chest.
She doesn’t need my rage and vengeance right now. She just needs this.
Vengeance can, and will, come later.
“Ever since then, I can’t do water over my head,” she says in a brittle voice. She laughs coldly. “And I used to love swimming. I was even on the dive team, and I was good. Now?” Her lips twist. “You should see my bathing routine, it’s fucking pathetic. I mean, I wash my hair bending over the bath—”
“It’s not pathetic,” I growl, taking her hand in mine. “It’s survival. It’s how we keep it together and cover the scars. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Our eyes lock in the darkness. My fingers tangle in her hair, pulling her lips to mine.
I was wrong.
There’s nothing breakable about her at all.
25
BIANCA
Something amazing filters into my nose as I come downstairs after my bath. The clatter of metal against utensils, mixed with James Brown and the hiss of sautéing, drifts from the kitchen as I head down the hall. When I step in, my brows shoot up.
Woah.
Kratos mentioned this morning that he wanted to cook dinner for me.
“What, like a DATE?” dorky-ass me teased.
“Exactly,” he’d murmured back.
Then he bent me over the bathroom vanity, spanked my ass until it was hot and sizzling, and fucked me hard, making me watch myself come in the mirror in front of us.
