23
Can a soul be delivered from hell?
That’s where mine resides, dying a blistering death in the torture of Conor’s tears.
We’ve been at this for an hour, and I’ve only succeeded in triggering back-to-back anxiety attacks.
Tying her wrists with rope to the headboard shoved her straight into hyperventilation. Covering her back with my weight spiraled her into another sobbing, breathless breakdown.
While prolonged exposure to the triggers benefits her in the long run, it doesn’t help us tonight. She’s not using her voice or addressing her emotions. She’s just trying to keep her lungs filled with air.
I’m starting to convince myself she doesn’t need to do this. But I know that’s panic talking. It’s killing me to see her like this.
“Conor. Look at me.” Stretched out beside her on the bed, I tuck her tear-drenched hair behind her ear. “Tell me what those men did to you.”
Her gaze darts to the rope on her wrists. Her face scrunches in agony, and a pained keening sound erupts from her throat.
I wrap my arms around her and kiss the track of tears along her cheek. I could endure her misery if I knew it was helping her, but she seems to be retreating deeper inside herself.
Her memories aren’t completely repressed. Fragments of them surface in strobe-like bursts of words. It’s as if her mind is protecting itself by disassociating from the complete picture.
When I bound her naked, face down, and covered her back with my body, I hoped it would rewrite the script in a safe environment.
But maybe she doesn’t need that night rewritten. What she needs is to get in touch with her feelings about it and bear witness to it.
I’m going about this the wrong way.
“Hang on, girl.” I drop a kiss on her lips and reach for the knots on her wrists, untying her.
“You’re giving up on me?” She lifts her damp face, tracking my movements.
“No. Never.” I release her hands from the rope and guide her off the bed. “We’re trying something different.”
I yank off my shirt, slip it over her head, and straighten it around her legs. Then I unbuckle my belt and slide the leather strap free.
“Hold this.” I fold the belt in half and press the ends against her palm. “Like that.”
“What are you doing?”
Unzipping my jeans, I let them slide midway down my ass and kneel on the bed with my back to her.
“I’m giving you permission to be angry.” I turn my neck and find her eyes over my shoulder. “I’m empowering you to let go of every emotion, thought, and memory you’re suppressing. Channel it all through that strap and onto my back.”
“What?” She gasps. “No. I’m not going to—”
“Hit me, Conor!” I shout in a tone that makes her jump. “Let it out.”
She paces behind me, twitching the belt and breathing heavily.
“I’m right here.” I stretch my arms out to the sides. “I want everything you’re holding in, no matter how ugly or painful. Every bruise, fracture, ache, tear, scratch, and torment. What’s yours is mine. Give it to me. Beat it into me. Do it!”
Her hitched sob penetrates my ears and grips my heart.
Facing away from her, I sit on my heels on the edge of the mattress, hands braced on my thighs and back straight.
Then I wait her out.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
She’s not going to do it without motivation.
I draw in a breath and release the first painful shove on my exhale. “I fucked those women at the bar. All the girls we went to school with. Shannon, Tina, Courtney—”
The strap whips across my back with a stinging burn, and she cries out, a seething, gut-wrenching sound. “Damn you, Jake.”
I slide my tongue across my lips, tasting her rage. “I fucked you in a barn and didn’t tell you it was me. I let you believe you were forgettable.”
More strikes, one right after another. She has a strong arm, but it’s just surface pain. She’s not breaking skin.
“I left you in the ravine.” I close my eyes against the acidic memory. “You had just been raped and sodomized, and you begged me not to leave you. I did it anyway, too occupied by my own needs.”
Her fury explodes, unfettered and shrieking from deep in her chest. I soak in her pain and knot it with my own as she drives the belt against my back.
Every bite on my skin burns hot with her trust, branding me, possessing me. She would never raise a hand to another person. She hits me because I commanded her to do it, because she knows I’ll protect her in the fire of her anger.
I keep talking, keep spurring her with reminders of my deceit, omissions, and manipulations.
Until her shattered whisper cuts me off.
“The first one pushed me into the dirt, and he… He…” She swings the strap, pelting my ribs.
“He forced himself inside my b-b-butt. He raped me there, and it… God, it hurt. So fucking bad.” Her voice breaks with tears, and she hits me again.
“I lost my virginity back there, before I lost it the other way, and I fucking hate him for that. I wish I would’ve been the one to kill him, because I hate him so much for hurting me.
It was excruciating, and I bled, and he wouldn’t stop.
The pain was so deep…” She releases a soul-crushing cry.
“It was so deep I felt it cramping in my belly.” She falls still.
“Then the second one climbed on top of me.”
Levi Tibbs. As she describes the trauma he inflicted on her, my eyes burn. My chest aches, and the world seems to slow beneath my fuming breaths.
She drops the belt and comes at me with her fists, pummeling my back as she furiously recounts the tragedy of her sixteenth birthday.
Inconceivable emotion pours from her lungs, her voice shaking with anger and tears.
She doesn’t stop hitting, doesn’t stop shouting, until every horrifying detail singes the air and every pound of rage breaks free.
I immerse my entire being in her words, in the images they conjure, and relive the brutality of that night with a hot ember charring my throat.
In that moment, I make the decision to forgive myself. I failed to protect her that night, but I’ve walked through hell since then, doing everything in my power to keep her safe. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure she’s never harmed again.
Eventually, her fists open, rubbing over my back as she cries. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I’m sorry—”
“No sorries.” I twist around and gather her in my arms. “No shame. Do you hear me? You gave us exactly what we needed.”
I tuck her against me and roll us to our sides, with her back against my chest. Her body sags, arms slack and breaths shredded. I run my fingers through her hair until her eyes drift shut. Then I sit with her in the grief.
Sometime later, she stirs from the silence. “Jake?”
“I’m here.” I turn her in my arms and caress her pale face. “How are you feeling?”
“My heart feels like it’s beating differently. Clearer. Brighter. Like it’s waking after a long hibernation.” She stares up at me with puffy, bloodshot eyes. “I think that might’ve been an enormously healing experience.”
“For you and me both.”
“Are you okay? Your back…”
“I’m good, Conor. Relieved.” I kiss her forehead, her nose, her lips. “We’ll still have some hard days ahead. Grief doesn’t just come and go in a night. But now we know how to work through it.”
“Okay.” She rests a hand on my cheek. “You’re going to give me answers now, right?”
“You’re exhausted. We can wait until—”
“Tonight.” Her eyes plead as she sits up.
“Tonight, then.”
“Thank you.” She slides her arms around my shoulders, hugging me while stroking her marks on my back. “Thank you for helping me. For not giving up.”
I ache to kiss her, but once I start, I won’t be able to stop. The quicker I tell her everything, the faster I’ll be inside her. That’s if she absolves the things I’ve done.
She’ll forgive me.
I think she already has.
Turning my head toward her arm, I ghost my lips along colorful sunsets and horses until her inked skin shivers with goosebumps.
“I need to get something.” I reluctantly unwrap us and set her on the bed against the pillows. “Stay here.”
In a few brisk strides, I reach the dresser and remove a large envelope from the bottom drawer. The seal is still intact, which means she hasn’t snooped. Not that she’s had the opportunity. I haven’t let her out of my sight since the first night she returned home.
“What is that?” She twists her fingers in my t-shirt, where it gathers around her thighs.
“The deed for the land.” I return to the bed.
“Julep Ranch?”
“No. The ten-thousand acres the ranch sits on.” I set the envelope on her lap. “You can read through all the documents later. For now, just focus on the highlighted sections on the pages I marked with tabs.”
I leave her to pick through the legalese and head to the bathroom to prepare a bath.
When the tub is filled, I shut off the faucet and turn to find her standing in the doorway.
“Lorne and I own the land? All of it?” The deed trembles in her hand as she stares down at it. “How? I thought my dad sold it to yours? And this other document?” She shuffles the papers. “It’s a trust signed by my mom. I didn’t know she had anything like this. Is it real?”
“Yes. I had everything verified by an attorney. Before your mom died, she gave the land to you and Lorne. She put it in your names, and that copy of the deed is documented by the county recorder. She handled everything through the proper channels.”
“What about your mom? She owned half of the ranch.”
“She owned half of the cattle business. Not the land. The acreage belongs to you and Lorne and no one else.” I crook my finger, motioning her closer. “Come here.”
“I’m so confused.” She steps toward me.
I take the documents from her, set them aside, and test the temperature of the water.
“Did you read the highlighted clauses in the trust?” Sliding my hands up her thighs, I catch the hem of the shirt and inch it up, up, and off.
“Yes, but the verbiage is incomprehensible.”
Naked Conor makes conversation incomprehensible.