Rachel
The usual dreams woke me up.
The feel of their hands on my skin was repulsive. Vomit-inducing. But this time, when they touched me, I didn’t just endure.
I fought back.
That night, I’d pleaded.
I’d begged for them to stop.
I’d tried to fight, but they’d held me down, and because they were so much stronger than me—Grizzly, in particular—they'd overpowered me easily.
Tonight, they didn't.
They still touched me. It still happened.
But I managed to hit them.
The girl back then had been weak.
The woman today wasn't.
She knew how to defend herself.
She was stronger now.
It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.
It meant that when I woke up, I didn't claw at my skin like I often found myself doing after I slept with Rex.
I was mad.
I wasn't scared.
How could I be when I came out fighting?
I could feel the adrenaline buzzing through my system as if I'd taken a direct dose of epinephrine to the heart.
"Rachel!"
My name being barked out in a gruff undertone had my eyes popping open.
Rex was staring down at me.
His haircut as fresh as before. His jaw shadowed with the onset of stubble, but not prickly.
Rex.
King.
Mine.
I let the thought process ripple through me.
Not Grizzly.
King.
Mine.
I realized my knuckles were aching, and, sleepily, I took note of how he had his hand curled around my fist.
The move might have felt like he was caging me, but I knew from the lightness of the clasp that he was merely stopping me from attacking him.
I blinked at him, aware that he was grinning at me.
"You punched me," he said proudly.
"I did?" I blurted out.
He nodded.
“I’m so sorry.”
His grin deepened. “Don’t be.”
"I don't usually do that?"
I thought I knew the answer, but he'd seen this side of me more than I ever had.
"No. You tend to—" He heaved a sigh, his grin dying. "You tend to wipe at your face, scrub at your arms. Sometimes, you even scratch them. If you hit me, you slap. It’s less of an attack and more desperate."
I grimaced because I knew the difference.
Desperate was the word for my attempts to escape.
The girl had hit out.
The woman had fought.
It was the difference between sun and moonlight.
I released a soft breath and told him something I’d never disclosed to anyone before.
“They came on my face. That’s why I wipe at my cheeks.
I can still remember doing that. It was sticky and it was in my hair.
I wanted to pour boiling water all over me to clean it off.
” My skin crawled at the memory. “I settled for alcohol wipes.”
After, I’d still felt dirty.
Some days, on the bad ones, a new makeup product could feel like that. I never used highlighter serum for that reason alone.
At my admission, Rex froze.
I wasn't an idiot. I knew why.
Not because of what I’d revealed, but because of the act of sharing.
Giving him a truth he didn’t want, but knowing he’d bear the burden as much as I did—it was my leap of faith. A sign of trust.
"The fuckers," he said softly, his tone belying the fury in his eyes.
"Yes,” I agreed. “They pulled my hair and they dragged my body about like I was a rag doll." I sucked in a breath, closing my eyes and tucking my face into his throat. "You okay with me telling you this?"
I already knew the answer, but now that I’d told him a disgusting fact about that night, he could have changed his mind.
"I want to know whatever you want to tell me."
It was what I wanted to hear, but...
"You can push me sometimes, Rex," I said. "I won't break."
"They pushed you—"
"No. They forced me. There's a difference. You pushing me isn't the same.
"We all need a little shepherding sometimes. Don't I guide you onto certain paths that you wouldn't ordinarily take with the MC?"
His nod, when it came, was slow. As if he were measuring his response.
"I think, before, you read me well. You sensed what I could take and what I couldn't—"
"It wasn't easy," he rasped. "I had to go against a lot of my natural inclinations."
"You did that because you love me, though."
It wasn’t a question.
"I-I need something different now." I exhaled. "You, but the real you. And I need to be me. The real me."
He lay in silence at my side, but I felt his tension. "Who is the real you, Rach?"
I tilted my head so that my nose was burrowed in his throat. God, he smelled so good. Like aftershave and us.
I didn't recognize the aftershave, but it was minty and fresh and clean. From the barbers?
Smiling at the thought of him coming to me straight after a haircut and shave, I found it easier to be brave when I told him, "I'm your girl. I'm just... a little battered around the edges."
"You've always been my girl," he said staunchly.
"Maybe to you," I countered. "But not to me. I fought it. You made me... I believed that love made me weak, and I didn't think I could afford that, but now I know that I can't afford to be without you so my priorities have to change."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No, quite the contrary." I cleared my throat twice.
Once from nerves, the second time because when I tried to talk, I couldn't get the words out.
Eventually, I croaked, "They spit roasted me.
They laughed too. It was a weird kind of cackle.
I can still hear it. I'd have known they were high from that alone.
I-It lasted thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of pain and misery and suffering.
Of them taking something I didn't give them, yes, but of them ramming home how this wasn't my place.
How everyone would believe them over me.
They didn't just rape my body; they raped my mind. "
"I'd have believed you," he whispered.
"M-Mom was pulling stunts again. Don't forget Axel was shocked when Rain finally did show up because it was her third time of claiming to be pregnant to keep him in line."
"It wasn't about your mom, Rachel," he argued quietly. "I never judged you for what she did. You're mine. You've always been mine. I know you would never have—" He sighed. "You have to understand that I've always known you're different around me.
"I'm not just talking about sexually, or about how we love each other, I'm talking physically. You let me in. You have since those days in the crawl space.
"Before Carly died, you were closed up. After, you were locked in your shell and nothing would drag you out.
"You were inexperienced back when you were raped. I worked hard to make you responsive, and even then, you only were because it was me. I might have been a teenaged jackass, Rach, but I was aware of that much." He pressed a kiss to my temple. "I'd always have believed you. Always.
“You can think that's me saying this now, that there's no way of knowing if I would have or not, but I know you, Rachel.
I always have." His hand moved to cup the ball of my shoulder.
He dragged it up and down the length of my arm.
"You can tell me everything; you can tell me nothing. This is a safe space, baby girl."
I released a shaky breath through my nose. My eyes prickled with tears, but I wasn't sad or upset. Mostly, I was just tired. Tired of the constraints of the past. I didn't want them to control me anymore. They were a burden I carried and I was weary of their weight.
"In my dreams, they always rape me and I always struggle but it's the struggles of a girl. I-I was small and they were strong. They used their size against me and they controlled me like I was a marionette.”
"You took self-defense classes in college, didn't you?"
"I did. If anyone tried to hurt me again, I could stop an attacker now." I swallowed. “I could stop them now.”
"Good." Such a simple answer, but it packed as much of a punch as my own fist flying into his gut would. The thought had me wincing. Because I had hit him. Somewhere. "Did I hurt you when I punched you? I’m sorry if I did."
"No. Winded me and made me jump but I'll take that over the screams."
I'd often woken up with a hoarse voice from shouting and screeching in my sleep. Sometimes, I even woke myself up screaming.
"I must be a nightmare to be around," I said with a wince.
"It's a nightmare to be without you," he corrected, and suddenly, his fingers were stroking down over my hair, soothing me.
I bit my lip as I sank even further into his hold.
Trusting him not to bruise the fragile parts of my nature, trusting him to face my fire with his own.
I'd always thought Rex had the knack for politics.
I just didn't realize that knack made him perfect for me.
"What are you thinking?" he rumbled after a couple of quiet moments.
"That I..." I licked my lips. "I believe you."
His hand stilled. "About what?"
"You wouldn't have thought I was lying."
Rex jolted at that, then he shifted up and away, twisting over me so that he was looking down at me.
"Say that to me when your eyes are on mine."
His voice was a growl.
Guttural.
Demanding.
I shot him a small smile—all I was capable of at that moment—and whispered, "I trust that you would have believed me about being raped."
His nostrils flared then his mouth was back on mine.
Not rough, not soft.
A signature on a verbal contract.
My favorite kind of kiss.