by Janie Crouch
His lips moved down her jaw to her throat, to that place right under her ear that he knew was so sensitive. He nipped at it. “You have no idea how good it feels to be here with you. It was difficult convincing myself that national security mattered when I knew I had that key in my pocket.”
He waited for a sarcastic comment, but none came. She hadn’t said or done anything since he first climbed on top of her. He hiked her leg up a little higher, rubbing their bodies together more fully. Maybe she just needed a little bit more time to wake up.
He brushed his lips back down her throat, the bruises still noticeable even in the semidarkness. She was hurt, a little fragile, he needed to remember that.
“You okay, sweetheart?” He moved the edge of her shirt aside with his lips, kissing across her collarbone. She still didn’t answer.
He leaned up on his elbows so he could look down at her more clearly. Her brown eyes stared directly at him. “This can wait, you know.” He smiled and trailed a finger across her cheek. He brushed her lips against his and her mouth seemed to automatically open for him. He kissed her again softly. “We can just sleep if you want. Believe it or not, I can convince certain parts of my body to simmer down when needed.”
Again, no smart-aleck remark. He didn’t even think Lillian was capable of that.
“You’re going pretty easy on me tonight,” he said. “Are you sure you didn’t get some sort of head injury?” He kissed her again. Her lips opened as soon as his touched hers, but then she didn’t respond.
As a matter of fact, her hands were still on his shoulders, and hadn’t moved. Her leg was still around his hips, where he’d placed it.
As soon as he removed his lips from hers, her mouth closed. Jace bent down to kiss her again and they opened.
But then did nothing.
What the hell was going on?
“Lillian?” He eased his weight off her farther. Her hands remained on his shoulders, her eyes open and looking right at him.
“Lillian.” He shook her a little. “Lily? What’s going on? Talk to me, sweetheart.”
Did she have some sort of head injury he hadn’t been aware of? She’d been fine earlier. Maybe a little off her game, stressed, but she certainly hadn’t been blanking out when she handled that bomb scare today.
He rolled his weight completely off her. Her arms dropped to her side on the mattress. Her eyes still had that blank stare. Like the body lying here was just an empty shell of the strong, vibrant woman she usually was.
Jace had seen this sort of blank stare before...a checking out of reality. But it had been men in the army suffering from PTSD.
And always, if the person was in no danger of hurting himself or others, the best thing was to leave his subconscious to work through it in his own way.
“Come back to me, Lil. Whatever it is, whatever you’re going through, we can work through it.”
Tears streamed out of her open eyes and down the sides of her face, but she didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t talk.
She was trapped in some hell in her mind and there was nothing Jace could do.
It was only a little over twenty minutes before Lillian came back to him, but it was one of the longest passages of time that he’d ever lived through.
He was still sitting next to her on the bed, holding her hand, when she finally started blinking. Tension rolled through her body and she began breathing more heavily.
“Lily? It’s Jace. You’re safe.”
She snatched her hand out of his before scooting over to the far side of the bed, pulling the comforter up to her chin. Her eyes darted around the room like she was looking for danger. Like she couldn’t figure out where she was.
“You’re safe, Lillian. You’re at a hotel in Denver.”
She got out of the bed now, back to the wall, obviously ready to fight.
Jace kept his voice even and his body still, not wanting to send her into a full panic. And he sure as hell didn’t want her reaching for the sidearm that sat on the bedside table while she was in this condition. “We’re on a mission with the SWAT team to protect the LESS Summit. You...fell asleep. You’re disoriented.”
It took her a few more moments of him repeating the same words before they began sinking in. And while she didn’t relax, at least she didn’t look like she was about to fight off an entire army.
“Jace?”
Thank God. “Yeah, sweetheart. It’s me. You scared me there for a bit. We were in the middle of making out and I lost you.”
To his utter dismay, big tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Not counting the tears that had seemed to leak out of her eyes of their own accord a little while ago, this was the first time Jace could remember seeing Lillian cry. The sight of them gutted him.
“Lily—”
She took a step back. “I’m sorry, Jace. Please don’t look at me like that. It’s not you, it just happens sometimes.”
His eyes narrowed. “What happens?”
She squeezed her eyes closed, one hand pulling the blanket more tightly around her, the other gesturing toward the bed. “I blank out during sex. But I promise it’s not your fault. It’s me. Please don’t take it personally. It wasn’t you.”
Jace could feel bile pooling in his stomach as he took in the ramifications of her words.
This wasn’t the first time this had happened to her.
The blackouts didn’t have anything to do with combat. This was centered around sex. Steve Drackett had been right back in Ren’s office.
Lillian was recovering from some sort of sexual assault.
He forced himself to ignore the way his heart seemed to be shattering around him. He had to understand exactly what she was dealing with. “This happens to you a lot?”
She kept her eyes tightly closed. Almost like a child who believed the monsters would go away if she didn’t face them. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just didn’t want you to think it was your fault. That it was something you did.”
He eased a little closer on the bed. “Did it happen this morning when we were together?”
Now her eyes opened. “No! No, this morning was...great. I was there. Completely there. The whole time. But this morning was the exception, not the norm.”
“But...it happens to you a lot?”
Her tiny nod told him everything he needed to know. The thought of this happening to her when she was with someone else. Someone who wouldn’t notice, or worse, take advantage. Jace struggled to tamp down the rage. “How often?”
“Until this morning? Pretty much always.”
“For how long?” Maybe the trauma was recent. That, while still being horrible, was at least understandable.
She shook her head, obviously not wanting to answer the question. Keeping his hands out in front of him, palms up in a gesture of nonaggression, he eased closer again.
“It’s behind me,” she whispered. “That’s all you need to know.”
“It’s obviously not behind you, based on the fact that thirty minutes ago when we were kissing, your eyes were open and your hands were on my shoulders, but your conscious mind was miles from that bed. It had hidden itself away to protect your psyche.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Finally, she just shook her head.
“You were raped.” God, he hated to even say that word to her. It was bitter, unbearable in his mouth.
She nodded, her brown eyes not leaving his.
He thought his heart had already been shattered, but he’d been wrong. Watching that small move of her head confirmed everything he’d feared, but hadn’t wanted to believe... The pain nearly doubled him over. “How long ago?”
She shook her head adamantly.
Why would she not want to answer that question? Was it so recent that she couldn’t bear to think about it at all?
>
“Lily, I need you to tell me. I want to be careful not to do or say anything that will trigger you in any way.” He got out of the bed and took a step closer, now just a few feet from her, relieved when she didn’t flinch away. “What we had this morning was special. It can be again. But I need you to trust me enough to tell me what happened to you so we can navigate this together. Please, baby.”
“I can’t, Jace,” she whispered, those big brown eyes begging him to let it go. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want to push. Didn’t want to ask her to give more than she could. But he also couldn’t risk doing something that would have her retreating into that shell again.
“Okay, you don’t have to talk to me.” He pushed down the hurt. This wasn’t about him. “But I’m going to go. I don’t want to stay here with you and take a chance on triggering you again.”
“Jace...”
The pain in her voice tore at him.
“I’m not mad, Tiger Lily.” He took a chance and stepped closer. When she didn’t move away, he slipped a hand in her hair at the nape of her neck. He pulled her forward until his lips met her forehead. “I understand you don’t want to talk about it. But I can’t stay here and take a chance on hurting you further. Doing damage because I’m not sure of how to navigate your emotional terrain.”
He backed away, giving her the best smile he could. His Lillian was broken, and she didn’t trust him enough to try to help her put herself back together. He really wasn’t mad about that—she needed to work through this however was best for her. He would be her friend if she wanted it. But he would not take a chance on hurting her further. Of using her the way she’d obviously been used by other men.
“We’ll talk more when you’re ready. Maybe after this op is over.” Pulling away was like a knife ripping him in the gut. But what else could he do? “I just don’t want to hurt you more.”
He gave her a gentle nod, then turned and walked toward the door. He was almost to it, hand on the knob, when he heard her words. He’d thought nothing she could say would’ve been worse than the initial knowledge that she’d been raped.
He was so, so wrong.
Her words changed everything he’d always held true.
“Twelve. I was raped twelve years ago.”
Chapter Fifteen
What was she doing? Was she really going to tell Jace the truth? The truth about her? About Daryl? About what had really happened?
She’d only ever spoken about it to Grace Parker. And even then she’d left out details. Jace was not going to let her leave out details.
He turned from the door and moved back into the main section of the room. She could see his blue eyes staring out at her. Not in disbelief—she’d never for one second thought he wouldn’t believe her—but in full tactical mode.
He was trying to put together the pieces.
“Lil, you have to just tell me. Because I swear nothing you could say would be any worse than what I’m imagining in my mind.”
Wanna bet?
She didn’t say the words but knew the truth was worse than whatever Jace was thinking. Was almost more than she could bear to think about. She didn’t want to hurt him unnecessarily. Daryl was his brother. They’d never gotten along, and Jace had joined the army to get out from Daryl’s thumb as soon as possible, but Daryl had been his brother.
No one would want to believe their own flesh and blood was capable of what his brother had done.
“Oh, God, it was Daryl, wasn’t it?”
The anguish in Jace’s voice made her want to rush to him, to hold him. To erase the agony in his eyes as she nodded.
He seemed to age right before her eyes. “Tell me.”
“It was after my eighteenth birthday. The day before we were supposed to leave. After you and I...” She nodded and shrugged.
Jace knew what she meant. After they’d had sex. She’d wanted to have sex with him for months before her birthday, but he’d refused everything but making out. Had said they’d have a lifetime together to make love. They could at least wait until they were both legal.
God, she’d loved him for that. It had made her feel so special, cherished. That she was worth waiting for.
“I got a text from you saying to meet you at the warehouse,” she continued. Daryl’s warehouse, where a lot of his illegal activities had taken place. “I knew you didn’t like me to go there alone, but I thought you’d gotten home from your job for Daryl early. The last job. I can’t even remember what it was anymore.” Not surprising, given all that had happened afterward.
“I was supposed to deliver an order of pharmaceutical drugs,” Jace whispered. “To a place clear on the other side of the state. The dealer I was supposed to deliver them to never even showed up.”
They looked at each other, realizing now it had all been a setup.
Lillian moved back over to the window, needing some distance, unable to face the blueness of Jace’s eyes for this next part. “I got to the warehouse and Daryl was waiting for me. Said he had found out we were leaving to join the army. Said there was no way he was going to let two of his best and most loyal runners leave at the same time.”
God, she’d been so naive. Had thought there was nothing Daryl could do to stop them. Had laughed at Daryl and told him that. Now that she was eighteen she could go wherever she wanted. And Jace had already been twenty. He would’ve left earlier if it hadn’t been for her. If he hadn’t wanted to be able to leave with her legally.
She wished they’d just run away from the very beginning.
“I told him he couldn’t stop us, we were leaving the next day.” She pressed her head against the cold glass. “He hit me in the stomach over and over. Dislocated my shoulder. Kicked me in the legs. It was before I knew how to fight. How to protect myself.”
The muscles and bones in question still twinged in horrific memory.
“He didn’t hit you in the face.”
She could hear the coarse tightness in Jace’s voice.
She shook her head against the glass. “No,” she whispered.
“Because he didn’t want there to be any bruises I could see. He knew that if I thought he’d forced you in any way, I would fight him. Kill him.”
She heard Jace pacing.
“Or die trying to get you out.”
“He—he raped me. Then locked me in the tiny janitor’s closet and left me in there all night. I knew you’d be looking for me. That all I had to do was survive until you found me.” That whole day was a blur of pain and trauma, but that she could remember. The knowledge that Jace would come for her. Would make her world all right again.
“Lillian...”
The pain in his voice was too much. She continued faster. She wasn’t helping either of them by dragging it out like this. She took a second to distance herself from the story mentally. “Daryl came back and got me the next morning. I was in pretty bad shape from the beating. He raped me again, then threw clean clothes at me to put on. Told me to get dressed, that you were coming over.”
She heard Jace’s strangled sound behind her. She continued. “Daryl told me there was no way both of us were leaving. He told me he had one of the guys in the rafters of the warehouse, with a rifle on you. Told me that if I didn’t just sit there and shut up, he would have you shot. And that while you were bleeding out he would rape me again right in front of you before you died.”
Jace’s curse was vile.
She finally turned from the window. “Looking back on it now, I think he was bluffing. You were his brother. I don’t think he would’ve killed you. He might have killed me to keep you from leaving, but he wasn’t going to kill you.”
“Lily...” He took a step toward her, but she held out a hand to ward him off. He could not touch her right now. Not at this very second.
“Daryl overplayed his hand. I think he thou
ght you would come back. That you would fight him for me or something. I’m not sure. I don’t think either of us thought you would just believe his lies so easily. Believe that I just jumped into his bed straight from yours.”
Jace shook his head, no color left in his face. “Daryl came to see me a couple hours before I came by there. Told me you had come to him. That you had said I was moving too fast, that you didn’t want to leave. That you didn’t know how to tell me you weren’t coming with me to join the army. That you wanted his protection and were even willing to sleep with him if that was what it cost.”
She hadn’t known any of that. “You believed him?”
“No, although I had to admit it was not outside the realm of possibility. I was talking forever and marriage and you were barely eighteen, for crying out loud. Thinking I was pushing too hard was my button. And Daryl didn’t just push it, he stomped on it.”
“It was always his talent.”
“When I got to the warehouse and saw you there, saw you clinging to him... I thought for once in his miserable life my brother was telling the truth. That I had pushed you too hard.”
She nodded. “He manipulated us both.”
“I’m so sorry, Lily. I should’ve gotten you alone. Talked to you.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have told you. I really thought he would kill you.”
“Why didn’t you come find me afterward? Once I was in the army Daryl couldn’t hurt me.”
She’d told him this much. She had to tell it all. “He kept me locked up. In that closet. He knew I would run, would tell you if I got the chance. He kept me there in the dark and only let me out when he...when he...”
She didn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. Jace knew what she meant. Daryl let her out when he raped her. Those days, those weeks, were all a blur of agony and darkness to her. When Daryl had gotten tired of her, he’d given her to a couple of his best men as a reward.
