“That fucking bastard prostituted his own wife out as a business incentive?” he demands furiously.
“He prostituted me out to anyone he wanted a favor from,” I clarify, and his eyes go darker with rage. “He once didn’t have cash on hand to tip a driver he hired to take us to the airport, so he had me suck the driver’s dick in payment.”
“What the fuck?” he hisses and again tries to sit up in the bed. I try to hold him back, but he’s stronger. Besides, I don’t think this conversation lends itself to snuggling so we both come up into sitting positions. He turns to me and braces himself with one arm on the mattress. His other reaches out, touching the tips of his fingers to my jaw as he whispers. “I’m so sorry, Cat. No man should ever do that a woman, much less his wife.”
I give a little shrug and try to make light of it. “It didn’t happen all the time. I tried to reason to myself that it was what I needed to do for this ‘so-called’ better life I wanted.”
Rand’s fingers slide from my jaw, past my ear, and then curve around the back of my neck. He pulls me a little closer to him and looks at me intently. “The Silo… that wasn’t something you wanted, was it?”
And yes… Rand doesn’t know me all that well, but he does get me. “The Silo is complicated for me, but no… joining was all Samuel’s idea. Like I said, he didn’t let his friends and associates have me all that often, and what I came to quickly realize was that Samuel got off on watching me debased. Sure… it garnered him favor with his friends, but really… he gave me to those men because he liked watching me suffer.”
“The Silo… you mostly did gang bangs,” Rand mutters as his gaze drifts a bit to the side in contemplation. “We all thought… I mean… we just assumed that was your thing. You liked multiple guys. But it was Samuel who insisted on it.”
“Yes,” I say simply.
His eyes come back to me filled with guilt. “I’m sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. “I wouldn’t have… I don’t think anyone there would have done that to you if we knew you didn’t like it.”
I can’t stand to see him feel guilt over something he had absolutely no knowledge of, so I need to make sure he understands that nothing about me is simple. “Rand… you couldn’t have known. No one did. And like I said… it’s complicated. There was a part of me, deep down inside, that sometimes liked what was being done to me. Sometimes, I’d be getting drilled by one man with another one waiting and I’d look at Samuel… and rather than see that smug satisfaction on his face, I’d sometimes see a kernel of jealousy. Another man was fucking his wife while he couldn’t. He’d sit there, limp dicked and unable to get off on the spectacle, and I swear to God, Rand… I’m not sure if it makes me a monster or what, but that would make me get off. Thinking of that sadist suffering while I was getting fucked raw would give me mind-blowing orgasms.”
“Jesus Christ,” Rand growls again, and then he’s pulling me roughly into his arms. He wraps himself around me, pressing me into his chest.
I manage to turn my face to the side so my cheek is resting over his heart and tell him, “It wasn’t all bad. All the guys at The Silo were really nice.”
He makes a sound deep in his chest. I’m not sure what it signifies, but his arms wrap around me tighter. “If that fucker wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him for you, Cat. I swear I would.”
I smile over his declaration, but I know he doesn’t mean it. I’m not worth killing someone over.
“Is there anything else I need to know?” Rand asks without loosening his hold on me.
“Isn’t that enough to give me nightmares about Samuel?” I ask, sort of tongue in cheek, but also as a means of perhaps avoiding one other ugly truth I’m thinking might be best left untold.
Rand’s silent for a moment, but then he says, “You trusted me with something deeply personal, but I need it all, Cat. How can I chase away your demons if I don’t know what they all are?”
My body goes utterly still, and then a phenomenon happens to me that has never happened before in my life.
My heart literally fucking melts within my chest.
I blink my eyes hard to chase away the sting of tears I feel forming over a man I barely know who is telling me he’s my champion. It’s unbelievable to me.
“Cat,” Rand prompts me. “Anything else?”
Giving a cough, I clear my throat and pull back so I can look him in the eye. I tell him perhaps the worst of it. “His oldest son, Kevin. He shared me with him quite a bit. Favorite son and all.”
He doesn’t say a word to me, but I can feel the fury vibrating off him. Rand’s eyes turn practically red and his jaw locks so tight that the muscle jumps violently. But because he has shown he cares for me, and doesn’t want to make this more upsetting than it already is, he keeps his silence and merely hugs me in commiseration.
A hug.
How novel.