Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
I hang her coat on the hook by the door, adjusting my stiff cock before turning to face her again. “How we proceed is up to you, Ashley, but I think we should dig a little deeper today.”
Green eyes fly to mine. “D-deeper?”
She thinks I mean physically—it’s easy to see that—though I’m actually referring to her psyche. Still, the man who is starved for her can’t help but press a little before making the clarification. Just to get a clue of how long she plans to keep me waiting. “Yes.” I pace closer to her, listening to her breath hitch. “I want to put you on the couch and go extra deep.” I drop my gaze to her knees and stroke it up the front of her body. “Really find the source of what’s making you ache.”
“Ache,” she whispers, shifting in her sandals. “I…I thought you were going to let me decide if you touch me.”
If? We’re still at “if.”
God help me.
I feign confusion. “That decision is yours. I’m talking about digging into your trauma, angel. What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing,” she blurts, spinning out of my reach and skirting around to the couch where she sits abruptly. “Trauma sounds amazing.”
Despite the heavy pain below my belt, my lips twitch.
I drag a hand down my face, which I apparently forgot to shave, and take my spot at the chair across from Ashley, settling my clipboard onto my lap. I want to tell her she looks like fucking paradise in that dress, but focusing on her looks is a trigger for her, so I hold my tongue. Instead, I say, “Talk to me about your parents.”
She opens her mouth, but hesitates, crossing her legs.
I show no outward reaction to the flash of lily-white panties, but my balls tighten roughly between my legs.
“Well, we’re on good terms now. But they…it’s hard to be around them sometimes, I guess.” Her lips twist. “Not that I’ve gotten much of a chance recently. Waylon doesn’t like me to visit.”
Of course not. He’s isolating her.
Temper burns up my windpipe. “Why is it hard to be around your parents?”
Ashley considers her folded hands. “They obviously feel very guilty about what they were forced to do. They cry and apologize…and I don’t know how to comfort them.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Sometimes I’m not sure I want to comfort them.”
“Interesting. Why do you think that is?”
Her fingers flinch ever so slightly. Several seconds of silence passes. I wait.
“I don’t think they ever really believed me. When I told them…how bad it was.”
“How bad what was?”
“The harassment from men. And later, from Waylon.” She shrugs a shoulder. “I could have ignored the harassment if it were just cat calls and inappropriate comments, even though no one should be subject to those, either.” She seems to be breathing faster. “But there was an incident. In high school. After that, I just wanted to…hide.”
The word incident almost has me snapping the clipboard in half.
“What incident?”
She wets her lips. “During my sophomore year, I was pulled into the boys’ locker room. They…thought it was funny. To flash me. It was my first time seeing anything like that…and there was so many guys. A wall of them. I couldn’t get out. They just kept shoving me around, pushing me into their friends. And then they decided I should return the favor. I should flash them, too. Only I wouldn’t, of course, so they…started tearing at my clothes.”
My hands are fucking shaking. “I’m sorry, Ashley.”
A small nod. “When I tried to explain it to my parents and the school administrators, they all just kind of brushed it off. Boys will be boys, they said. Meanwhile, I was…some part of me was dying inside. The shame was so thick.”
“The shame is theirs,” I seethe.
“Oh, I know that. Logically. But that doesn’t seem to help the fear of it happening again. Being powerless again. After that day, I didn’t want a single inch of my skin showing after that. It doesn’t stop the comments or the…the entitlement, though. And then came Waylon. My parents thought he was harmless, in terms of the attention he paid me. Once they realized the truth, it was too late.” She looks at me for a prolonged beat. “It’s always like that. No one takes a woman’s fear seriously until she’s dead. Or married to someone who hurts them.”
Grief pours into me like wet concrete.
She has no idea how those words, that truth, affects me. But they affect her so much more. She wasn’t the bystander of the trauma, she experienced it firsthand. All I can do is sit here in my helpless rage, wishing to go back in time and protect her.
“They should have listened to you. They should have punished those boys for their deplorable actions. And most importantly, taken steps to make you feel safe again, by any means necessary. Especially when you were brave enough to come forward.”