Present Day—Richland
COLLIN HAD WORSHIPPED my body and made love to me for hours that night, and I’d pushed the bizarre encounter out of my mind. I’d slowly learned over the next six months that he knew about a dozen pressure points on each side of my body incredibly well, and every time we were in public and I did something he deemed stupid, he would be quick to show me, along with commanding me not to show my pain. If we were alone, he would dig his fingers into a pressure point until I ended up on the floor, begging him to stop. But it wasn’t until just a few hours after we said “I do” that I understood I’d never known Collin at all, and that pressure points were the least of my worries with him. The guy I’d been making excuses for, the guy I’d loved, was no longer there.
He was still tall and handsome, with sandy blond hair and dark blue eyes. He still knew how to charm anyone into believing whatever fell from his lips, and he still held the hearts of my family. But everything I’d loved about him was now gone. My love for him died the moment he finally crushed my spirit, and I’d just been going through the motions, and praying for better days, every day for the last two and a half years.
My hands froze when Collin’s arms slowly wrapped around my waist that night before I was able to calm myself enough to continue washing the dishes from dinner.
“Are you almost done?” he asked softly; his lips brushed the back of my neck as he spoke.
“Yeah.”
His hands moved to slip under the bottom of my shirt, and I suddenly wanted to have more dishes that needed to be washed.
“Then hurry.”
I didn’t.
As soon as the last plate was in the dishwasher, Collin was pulling me back toward the bedroom. I don’t remember him undressing me, and I wasn’t sure when his clothes had joined mine on the floor. I just knew he was laying me back on the bed, and I was losing my grip on my safe place to block out what was happening. I needed to get back to my safe place in my head; I didn’t want to be a part of this.
Gripping my chin in one of his hands, he forced me to look up at him as he moved inside me. Each thrust made my body jerk against the bed as I felt my hate for him grow. My arms lay unmoving at my sides, my body stiff as I fought with myself to push him away.
He could’ve been fucking a corpse and there would have been little difference.
Releasing my jaw, he sat back and moved his hand between us, and every nerve ending came alive when his fingers brushed against me. My head fell to the side and I stared at the window as my body started responding to him. I clenched my jaw shut against the shaking, and began hating myself for feeling any kind of pleasure from him. My throat tightened against the tears I was holding back, and my body jerked with silent sobs when he forced an orgasm from me.
Leaning back over me, he quickened his pace until he found his own release, and seconds later he was moving my head so I was facing him again. If he saw the wetness in my eyes, he didn’t comment on it.
He pressed his lips to mine firmly. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I managed to say past the tightness in my throat.
“Go clean up.”
As soon as he released my chin, I was moving out from underneath him and off the bed to walk into the bathroom. After cleaning myself, I stood in front of the mirror just staring at what I’d become.
My brown hair was dull and flat, and might have started thinning, but it was still too thick to be sure. My blue eyes had no life left in them, and I wondered what people saw in them even when I pretended everything was fine. I’d lost forty pounds when I’d only had about five I could lose when I’d met Collin. Bones stuck out that shouldn’t, making the bruises on my stomach and tops of my thighs that much more apparent.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to eat—I couldn’t. I was always too afraid of what was about to happen, or was coming off whatever had just happened. If I did manage to eat, the stress from my life with Collin usually had it souring in my stomach soon after. And the bruises—there was never enough time for the old ones to disappear before there were new ones there. But Collin was smart: he never put them somewhere they could be seen. Which is why knowing pressure points and how to instill fear were his biggest allies.
I took in my whole reflection, and grimaced. Twenty-two, and I looked like I was days away from death’s door. Maybe one day God would be kind enough to just take me, because Lord knew there was no other way to escape Collin.
Chapter 3
Knox
Present Day—Thatch, Washington