Chapter 50 #2
However, the body above her moved. Hands drew her up so she was sitting. But she didn’t know what they were doing.
All she knew was that she had to fight!
Fight to free herself. Because she wasn’t going to be taken again. She wasn’t going to be held down and hurt.
No, no, no!
“Leave me alone!” she screamed. “Don’t hurt me!”
“No one is going to hurt you, Angie,” a voice told her calmly. “I will not allow it.”
“Fuck. Fuck.”
That was Jared. What was wrong? He sounded so . . . tortured.
She couldn’t work it out. She couldn’t figure anything out.
All she knew was that she needed to get out of here. Rolling, she fell off the bed and landed on her knees with a cry.
Ouch.
Shit, that hurt.
But she didn’t have time to stop. She had to get to somewhere safe.
Somewhere small and dark. She started crawling until she found the doors to a closet.
Pulling them open, she crawled inside and then dragged the doors shut.
The closet was huge, though. And she still felt unsafe.
So she headed into one corner, underneath some coats and pants that were hanging up.
Reaching up, she tugged down a coat and placed it over her.
There.
She was all hidden.
Now, she could fall apart.
What the fuck was he thinking?
Why had he loomed over her like that?
Fuck. Fuck.
She’d had a panic attack while he was touching her! After he’d promised to keep her safe.
“That wasn’t your fault,” North told him.
Jared shook his head. “How can it not be my fault? Did you see the panic in her face? And she fell off the bed and didn’t even pause to check that she was okay. She just took off for the closet. Fuck. Fuck!” Jared got up and started pacing. “It was too soon.”
“She said that she was ready. She let us make her come.”
“Yes, well, clearly she was wrong. I shouldn’t have pushed her.”
“You didn’t push. You asked.”
Jared ran his hand over his face. “I should have made her wait.”
“And that might have just made her more nervous. You need to go speak to her.”
Jared knew that.
He just . . . the look on her face was going to haunt him. She’d looked so upset. So scared.
And he had caused that.
“It wasn’t you she was seeing,” North told him quietly.
“I know. But that doesn’t seem to make it any easier. What if I scare her again?”
North shrugged. “Don’t.”
“North,” he warned.
“Just don’t loom over her, don’t touch her without her permission. I need to go get something.” North disappeared.
Great. Some help he was. Jared guessed he was in this on his own.
After shaking off his anger at himself—it was still there he just managed to get it under control—he walked over to the closet and stepped in.
To find it empty.
What the hell? She’d definitely come in here. He took a deep breath and tried to think. Crouching, he glanced around and saw a couple of toes poking out from under a coat in the corner.
Then he looked down at himself. Fuck, he was still naked.
Grabbing some sweatpants from a drawer, he drew them on before sitting on the floor.
“Baby? Can you hear me?” He nearly slapped himself. Of course she could hear him. She wasn’t going deaf.
For fuck’s sake.
There was no reply, though.
“Baby girl, can you come out of there so I can talk to you?”
Still nothing.
He hung his head. Maybe she was scared of him now. Who could blame her if she was . . .
“Are you scared of me, baby? I’ll leave you alone if that’s the case. I don’t want to do anything to scare you more.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Jared,” North said from behind him.
Turning, Jared glared up at the other man. What the fuck?
“She might be scared, but not of you. She wasn’t thinking properly. It wasn’t you that she saw. It was him.”
There was a sniffle from the corner of the wardrobe.
“And right now she probably feels a bit worried, maybe a bit ashamed.”
“She should never be ashamed,” Jared said fiercely. “What happened wasn’t her fault.”
“We know that. Does she?” North asked.
“I do,” she said quietly. “My therapist and I worked through it all. For some time I was . . . I was confused. I was young and he was my husband. He’d tell me it was my duty. I don’t know. I knew it was wrong. But he would just have my brain in such a mess that I couldn’t think properly.”
Yeah, his father had been a master manipulator. He knew that better than anyone.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Jared told her. “I won’t come near you again if that’s what you want.”
“Jared,” North said with a sigh. “He doesn’t mean that, Angie. Believe it or not, he thinks that promise will make things better.”
“It won’t?” Jared asked.
“Fuck no. It will just make her think she did something wrong.”
The jacket moved and Angie’s pale face peered out at them. But she was staring up at North instead of Jared.
“How did you know?” she asked.
North shrugged. “I wasn’t abused in the way that you were.
But I’ve had people touch me without my permission.
Hurt me when I was a child. And I thought it was something I did.
My fault. But it wasn’t my fault. And it certainly wasn’t yours.
And you cannot blame yourself for your reaction just now. You can’t help reacting like that.”
She nodded, then turned her gaze toward Jared. “I really didn’t mean to panic. I know you’d never hurt me. But when you loomed over me, I just . . . I saw him. Fergus. I understand if you never want to touch me again.”
Jared stared at her in sadness. Then he opened his arms. “Come here, baby girl.”
For a moment he didn’t think she would move. Then she crawled out from under the coat and made her way to him. He drew her onto his lap, holding her tight and rocking her gently.
“I’m so sorry I scared you, no wait, don’t say anything,” he said when she made a protesting noise. “I know you didn’t realize it was me. And I’m not upset with you at all. All of my anger is aimed at myself. I most definitely will be touching you again.”
North handed him a blanket and her two whales. Was that what he’d gone to get before?
Okay, now Jared felt terrible for what he’d thought.
He wrapped the blanket around their girl and tucked in the two toys. Then he held her for a long time, crooning softly under his breath until he felt her slump in his arms.
“Thank you,” he said to North quietly.
“What for?”
“For supporting me. In everything. You are important. To me. To her. To us.”
North just stared at him for a long moment before nodding then turning and leaving. Jared sighed.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
And neither was a menage relationship between three people who were filled with trauma from their pasts.
But he wouldn’t have his life any other way.