He didn’t want to think about it now. But she was right. He’d always wonder, and that wasn’t fair to either of them. So man up and deal with this shit now.
‘What did he do?’
‘Well, he grabbed me and shook me, so hard I saw stars. I tried to run, but he caught hold of my hair and pulled me back. That was at three a.m.’
Thorne forced himself to breathe. Evan hadn’t kidnapped Lucy until around eight the next morning. ‘So he had you alone for hours.’
‘Yes. I think it was at about seven thirty that he finally drugged me. I fought him, Thorne. I promise you I did.’
He tightened his arm around her shoulders, pressing her closer to him, his other hand stroking her hair, still in Angie’s updo. ‘I know you did,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I remember the bruises.’
‘By the time we got to the hospital, it was more than twelve hours later. They . . . did a rape kit as a matter of procedure, but I told them I hadn’t been raped. That it was . . .’ She trailed off, her swallow audible. ‘Consensual.’
‘Why?’ he murmured.
‘Because by then he was dead and JD had saved Lucy and I was just a footnote to the whole nightmare. I was the “girlfriend of the serial killer”, the woman who’d believed his lies. Who’d invited him into her bed. I felt stupid enough, Thorne. I didn’t want to rehash what had really happened.’
‘I understand.’ He really did. ‘It was like me changing my name to Thorne and moving on with my life.’
‘Exactly,’ she said, sounding relieved. ‘For the record, he was pretty vanilla in his physical technique, but he made sure he humiliated me. Made sure it hurt. He was big, so it kind of hurt a lot.’
He was big. Evan had been six-four at least. Big like me.
Thorne thought he was going to throw up.
His hand tightened reflexively in her hair and she flinched. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, immediately loosening his grip. ‘Can I take these pins out? I like your hair down.’
‘If you want,’ she said, but not unkindly. ‘They were giving me a headache anyway.’
‘Why didn’t you take them out earlier?’ he asked, deliberately chasing this new topic, just to give them both a moment’s respite.
‘Because my hair was pretty and princessy.’
He huffed a chuckle and kissed the top of her head. ‘I never quite get over what you women do to look pretty. Just looking at your shoes is enough to put me in traction.’
‘Hey,’ she protested, but there was no heat behind it. ‘Don’t diss the heels. Without them, I’d be staring at your belly button.’
He pulled out a hairpin. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’ Although she likely would. ‘But I can appreciate your legs in heels, so whatever floats your boat, babe.’
She worked a few of his shirt buttons free and pressed a kiss to the middle of his chest. ‘I like looking here. You are a beautiful man, Thomas Thorne.’
He’d been called beautiful before, in dozens of ways by dozens of other women, but never had it given him the pleasure that Gwyn’s simple words did. ‘Thank you.’
She kissed his chest again. ‘You’re welcome.’ She drew a breath and let it out. ‘You ready for round two of the painful info dump?’
He hadn’t thought she’d been fooled by his timeout. He concentrated on finding the pins in her hair, forcing himself to answer. ‘Yes.’
‘All right. Most of his abuse was focused on making me record a message he could play to lure Lucy. I refused.’ She paused for a moment that seemed to drag on for hours, but it was less than a minute. ‘I refused several times.’
His chest constricted painfully. ‘Baby,’ he whispered, and she patted his chest comfortingly.
‘It was kind of empowering, telling him no,’ she mused. ‘I couldn’t get away, couldn’t even scream because he’d taped my mouth shut while he did his worst, but I could tell him no when he took the tape off and demanded I record the message. I wasn’t going to help him kill Lucy, that was for damn sure. No reason she should have to pay for my stupidity.’
No. No fucking way. ‘You weren’t stupid,’ he growled. ‘He fooled all of us.’
She patted his chest again. ‘I know that now. I even believe it sometimes. But that’s certainly not what I was believing then. I was kicking myself for letting him use me. Which was what he reminded me of over and over during those hours. How he’d used me. How he’d manipulated me. How stupid I was to have believed his lies. How he’d laughed to himself every time he fucked me.’
Thorne leaned his head back against the sofa cushion, counting his breaths. Breathing in, six, five, four, three, two, one. Hold for four. Breathing out, six, five, four, three, two, one. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Until you no longer want to dig him up and rip his corpse to shreds. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
He heard a choked sound and knew it had come from his own throat. But he couldn’t make it stop. Couldn’t swallow it back. Breathe. Breathe.
Hold it together. But he couldn’t. He was flying apart, molecule by molecule.
‘Thorne? Oh, honey.’ Gwyn straddled one of his thighs and wrapped her arms around his head, cradling him to her breast.
Because he was crying, weeping like he hadn’t done in years, not since Jamie had told him that Sherri was dead.
She rocked him, murmuring comfort into his ear that he couldn’t hear because the dam had broken and he was sobbing loudly, holding her so tightly that he was sure she couldn’t breathe. But she never asked him to let her go, so he held on.
She was dropping kisses on top of his head, pressing them to his temples, all while she rocked him, whispering to him. Comforting him when he was supposed to be comforting her.
He clenched his jaw, ground his teeth, fought to control himself. ‘God,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’
‘For what?’ she asked reasonably. ‘For not stopping him? For not reading my mind afterward? For not killing him yourself?’
‘Yes.’ The word came out on a rush of air. ‘All of the above.’
She released him only enough to kiss his forehead, his swollen eyes. ‘You know what? If you’d known, you would have. I have not a single doubt.’
And somehow, that helped. ‘What do I do now? For you?’
‘Be here. And do what you did yesterday morning and again in the afternoon. Show me that you think I’m worth it.’
Worth it, worth it, worth it. He’d chanted the words as he’d claimed her as his own, as he’d made love to her, though inside his mind he was chanting love you, love you, love you. ‘You are worth it,’ he whispered. I love you. So goddamn much. But he didn’t say that, because he didn’t want to be feeling gutted and sad when he finally spoke those words. He wanted it to be perfect. Like she deserved.
‘You make me believe that.’ She kissed him again, this time sweet and sexy all at once. ‘You make me believe that I can have forever, Thorne. And last week I would have said that wasn’t possible. But now, I . . . I want that. Forever. With you.’
He opened his eyes to find her staring down at him, her hair half up, half down, smiling at him like he’d hung the moon. ‘I love you,’ he said, because the words simply wouldn’t be silenced.
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes filling with tears.
He touched her lips, his fingers trembling. ‘You don’t have to say it back.’
She took his fingers, kissing them before wrapping her hand around them. ‘I love you too. I think I always have. I was just too scared to admit it.’
He thought he might actually cry again. ‘You’re not scared now?’
‘Of you? No. Of this? No. That I might mess it up? Hell, yeah.’
‘You can’t mess it up. Just be here. With me.’
‘Okay,’ she whispered. ‘There’s one more thing you can do for me.’
‘What? Name it.’