Love Me Gently (Deer Creek #1)

One

Trina

Now

* * *

I sucked at being perfect. No one had to tell me that.

The bruise and cut on my face confirmed it.

I hissed in a breath as I gently applied retinol serum to my face.

Normally on nights like this, I was a master at avoiding looking at my face in the mirror but tonight had been worse than it’d been in months. The evidence of the bruise blossoming on my left cheekbone far too evident already.

At least it’d been a backhanded slap and not a punch. But the jagged edges of his ring left a nasty cut that took a while to stop bleeding.

The swelling and discoloration would have to heal if I had any hope of being allowed outside tomorrow.

I’d need heavy concealer to hide it, and I was running low, so a trip to Sephora for more was questionable.

“What a mess.”

It wasn’t just my face. It was everything. My body. My spirit. My life. My choices.

I could no longer count the messes I’d made in the last twelve years, but I’d never forget the one that was the catalyst for the ruin I’d made of everything since then.

“Come to bed, Katrina.”

I quickly hid my flinch at Jonathan’s voice from the bedroom and swallowed down the bile rising in my throat.

“ more minute,”

I called back. I peeked my head out of our bathroom door.

He was already in the bed, covers folded back. He’d been handsome once. Almost the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life.

To the outside world, he still was, but now all I saw was his ugly evilness.

I plastered a kind smile on my face that did little to soften the irritation tightening the Norse-God features on his. “I need to use the restroom and then I’ll be there.”

“Hurry. You know how I feel about waiting.”

I dipped my chin in acknowledgment, closed the bathroom door, and quickly finished up and prepared myself. I’d learned a long time ago to keep a bottle of lubricant hidden and applied it.

My husband had already taken his pound of flesh, but in a few moments when he took my body, at least it wouldn’t hurt so much.

The pain deep inside, though, would never heal. I had twelve years of life behind me to prove it.