Chapter 30
Ethan
I’m jarred awake by screaming. I’m disorientated for a few seconds before I realize that it’s coming from beside me.
“Jake! Please. No, stop! Ethan, make him stop! It hurts. Please—”
“Bonnie!” I grab her to stop her thrashing and shake her awake. Her eyes open, unseeing, and, if anything, the fright in them escalates.
“No, let me go! Stop it, Jake—” She becomes more distressed and agitated and tries to get away from me. It occurs to me that my holding her down is worsening the situation.
The moment I release her, she vaults off the bed and lands on the carpeted floor with a dull thud. I immediately check that she’s okay. She scrambles to her feet and, to my horror, starts to back away in a blind run.
Shit, she’ll crash into a wall! I lunge, grabbing her by the waist and holding on tight just before she hits the wall.
“Wake up, Bonnie," I call sharply. “Come on! It’s just a bad dream.”
Slowly, the tension seeps from her until she goes limp in my arms. She’s naked apart from her panties and slick with sweat. I put her back on the bed. My heart is pounding with the shock of what I just witnessed. I was literally dragged into the nightmare with her.
“Bonnie, you’re safe, you’re okay,” I murmur, stroking her temple. “I’m here.” The fog lifts from her eyes.
“Ethan?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Oh, thank God!” She curls into me and starts to cry.
Oh, Jesus. My heart breaks for her. Who the fuck hurt my woman this bad? I hold her until she settles. “It was just a bad dream,” I say over and over. “I’m here, and you’re safe with me.”
After her hiccups subside, she says in a small voice, “It’s always the same one. Only, this time, it was worse.”
“The same nightmare?”
She nods. “In Clonmel, on the streets. When I was homeless.”
What? Breath remains trapped inside my lungs. “You were homeless on the street?”
She nods. “I ran away from home and went to Clonmel, but I couldn't find Nan. I wasn’t thinking. I thought that since it was such a small place, I would find it. So, I was on the street for a few weeks before she found me.”
My head is spinning with a thousand and one questions, but I try to keep my alarm under control. She needs me to be strong and not unravel right now. “Did you try going to the authorities when you got lost?”
“No, because I found Twiggy,” she answers.
She explains before I get the chance to ask who the fuck Twiggy is. I’m still gearing up to hear more about that Jake motherfucker. Because I know he’s the one who hurt her.
“Twiggy—um, his real name is Silas. He was a boy I met in the streets. He was tall and very strong, but he wasn't scary at all. He looked like a girl and sometimes dressed like one. I didn’t have any friends, and also, nobody dared mess with me when he was near, so I followed him around.” She seems to physically brace herself before continuing, “And in time, I begged him to give me drugs, too, and so, he gave me heroin.”
I stare at the woman in my arms, incredulous. “Are you being serious, Bonnie?”
She burst into tears. “I wanted to forget! I was hurting too badly. I’m so sorry, Ethan.”
“Hey, hey, baby, look at me. It’s okay.” I kiss her tears away. “It’s okay.” I kiss her forehead, her eyelids, her pert nose, and sculpted cheekbones, and finally take her plump lips, sweeping my tongue into her mouth to stroke along hers. I let myself indulge in her taste before releasing her mouth to touch my forehead to hers.
“I don’t care what you’ve done. I love you and I want you. All of you. I just want to know what happened to you, okay?”
She nods.
“So, what happened after?”
“Nan loved me and Twiggy, in spite of everything. But she was smart enough to keep her money and precious things locked away from us. We were stealing, pickpocketing, that sort of thing.
Twiggy got clean first and made me do the same. Anyway, it wasn’t much fun on the streets without him to protect me. We moved to Dublin, then he taught me how to hack. He’d always been a hacker but went through a rough patch, and that’s why he became homeless.”
I’m careful not to show how much I’m freaking out. “How old were you at the time?”
“Um, I think I was twenty-one when we moved to Dublin. The following year, I came to the U.S.”
Twenty-one . At twenty-one, I was in college, already making money, getting recognized for my work, and having therapy for PTSD.
This delicate woman here had been to hell and back at twenty-one
I can’t wait anymore, so I flip us over so she’s lying on top of me.
“Baby, who is Jake?”
She flinches, and I stroke a soothing hand down her back.
“Was it him?” I ask softly. After she nods, I gather her closer. “When?”
“I was seventeen. It was debs—prom night.”
Sonofabitch. “I am so sorry, Bonnie.” I hold her tightly to me.
“I had a crush on him for as long as I can remember, and he pretended to like me. I was so stupid, Ethan.”
“You were not, it wasn’t your fault, Bonnie.”
She pauses for a bit, clearly gathering the courage to finish her story. “That’s the reason why I ran away from home. I left school because everyone knew about what happened that night. They called me names.” She starts to cry.
The pain I hear in her voice when she says the next few words breaks my heart.
“It was a bet with his friends to fuck the Sect master's daughter and turn the religious girl into a slut,” she whispers. “That’s what my dad was. A Sect master. Anyway, Jake Tyler drugged me and took pictures when he was done. He won the bet and left me the money to buy a new dress. We were so poor that I took the money and ran away with it.”
I see.
“And this Jake Tyler, do you know where he is now?” I ask casually.
“He’s in Dublin, I think. His dad has pharmacies all over Ireland, but most are in Dublin.”
He’s still alive then. Good. He messed with the wrong girl.
“What about your parents? What did they do about all of this?”
“Nothing. Well, my father called me a prostitute.”
My eyes widen, and I rear back in anger and disbelief. This time, I don’t bother to hide my reaction. “Excuse me?”
“Um… maybe if I explained about how I grew up, then you’ll understand how he could have done that.”
She tells me about her childhood in the Harmonial Sect, the cult that dictated the cruel and ludicrous rules she had to abide by growing up. She tells me everything, up until her trip to Clonmel. I thought my heart was done breaking for her, but Jesus fucking Christ, did it get worse.
I want to laugh. And kick myself. I thought I went through pain ?
I used to think that nothing could hurt worse than a surgeon ripping through my abdomen whilst I was awake, unable to do anything except grit my teeth and bear it, but this?
I see the full picture now. Why she is the way she is and why she called to me on a deeper level. I’ve been through trauma, but mine only lasted a few hours. Hers lasted for almost her entire life.
I can’t believe this tiny, delicate woman went through unspeakable horror and still emerged strong.
“You’re so beautiful and resilient and so smart, Bonnie. I am in awe of you.”
“Thank you,” she says shyly. “My real name is Siobhán Ni Ruaidhrí, you know. I changed it to Bonnie.”
“Siobhán is such a beautiful name. Did you change it to make it less Irish-sounding?” I now understand why she tries to bury her past, her accent, and her name.
“Yes. But you can call me Siobhán, if you want.”
And that has my cock springing to life so fast that I get dizzy. Damn. That completely blindsided me. “Aw, hell, baby.”
Fuck, she’s pressing buttons I didn’t even know I had.
“You liked that.” She pushes against my hardness.
“A lot, apparently.” And I actually feel my face heating up.
Christ. Get it together, it’s only a name she gave you . “You’re dangerous for my blood pressure.”
“Keep your doctors close by then, old man,” she teases.
“Hmm. I’ll tell you what I think about doctors.” I put her hand around the wrinkled skin on my right side.
“What’s that?”
“I had my appendix taken out at sixteen.” If she can trust me enough to open up about her trauma, then so can I. “We didn’t have insurance, so Dad could only afford a certain type of doctor. Only, the anesthesiologist made a mistake. He paralyzed my muscles but didn’t quite deaden the nerves.”
“What happened?”
“I felt every slice and the gut-wrenching pain as my insides were pulled apart. I heard every comment. Every joke in the operating room. They even wondered why my blood pressure kept going through the roof. I couldn’t open my eyes or scream in agony. I had to lie there and take the pain. And keep taking it. And it never stopped.”
“Ethan, oh, my God, that’s horrible!”
“Oh, it was. Excruciatingly so. I was damaged goods afterwards. Ten years of therapy gave me a semblance of normalcy. I still have phantom pain sometimes.”
She rubs the scar. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. Is that why you—”
“Have to have control over everything near me? Yeah, pretty much,” I respond.
“And you said you wouldn’t consider a procedure for your eyes. Is that why?”
“It's only a three-hour-long procedure. I wouldn’t even be put to sleep. But I can’t be helpless in someone else’s control again.”
“Oh, I can imagine. You were only sixteen! I’m so sorry.” She throws her arms around me and hugs me tight.
“You were seventeen when you were violated, too. Have you ever thought about therapy, Bonnie? That’s an awful lot of baggage to carry around.”
“I have thought about it. It's just that I can’t remember the details of how he forced himself on me. Must be the drugs he gave me. I think it’s a blessing not to remember. I worry that I’ll lose that blessing if I let myself go to therapy.”
“What about your parents’ betrayal? Growing up under those circumstances has got to leave scars on you somehow.”
“I suppose. I don’t know, though. Again, rehashing all that is bound to be painful, isn’t it?”
“Alright, Bonnie, take your time. You’re right. Therapy can be hard, and you need to be sure you want to go through it.”
“Coming from the therapy expert.” She nudges me playfully, and I chuckle.
The progress I've made in six months is more than the past ten years combined. And it’s because of this woman constantly pushing my limits and each time rewarding me with what I crave most: her.
We stay like that for a long while, her naked body sprawled over mine, my hand combing through her short, curly hair.
“Ethan,” she says as she looks up at me. I look down, meeting her gaze.
“Hmm?”
“I like being here, with you.”
That’s because you belong with me .
“You’re falling for me, Bonnie, and you should know that you’ll fall harder every time you run away and come back.”
She rolls her eyes. “In your dreams. You’re so full of yourself. I wonder if you stand in front of the mirror, preening and reciting eulogies to yourself on a daily basis.”
I laugh. “Well, except for the recitals. So, what do you say to me being your boyfriend?"
"I don't do boyfriends, Harvard." She smirks.
I chuckle, "This one you'll do Bonnie. You'll do him so hard you'll see a whole galaxy of stars."
She giggles "I dunno, you're too tall. You're twelve inches taller than me. I'll get a crick in my neck talking to you. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is."
"And I'll probably be hunchbacked in a few years' time, but if we can find a good chiropractor before we begin—"
"What do you mean 'years' Ethan?"
I ignore that. Instead, I say. "You know what I see when I look at you, Bonnie?"
"What?" She breathes.
Christ, talk about a praise kink. We're going to have an insane amount of fun from that little quirk of hers.
"Me."
She rolls her eyes and huffs, "And it was going so well!"
I laugh. "Bonnie, that was such a high compliment. In fact, that's as high as it can get."
"Oh my God, your ego is unbelievable. Let me just say, you are so not going to be my boyfriend."
I turn over so she’s on her back, then I splay my hand on her belly. "I hear you."
My hand almost spans her narrow waist. I follow her curves to the flare of her hip and stroke the soft flesh of her inner thigh.
Her soft intake of breath warms me.
“We’re two halves of a whole, Siobhán. You can argue with the delicious throbbing you’re feeling right… here.” My thumb slips through her slick folds, circling around her engorged clit.
She gasps. I slip a finger inside her, and her resulting moan feels like a lick on my cock.
“By the way, how did your Xi-Gen interview go?” I continue to stroke my thumb against her clit while thrusting my finger in and out of her drenched core.
“How do you expect?” she purrs. “As there was no jackass asking me questions, ah–” she breaks off in a moan, then she continues, “–asking questions beyond the scope of the interview, it went well.”
I thrust faster inside her.
“Ethan.” Her hips move against my hand, and her head falls back in pleasure. When her breathing becomes erratic and I know she’s getting close, I take my hand away. She whines in protest.
“In that case, my love, I’d better teach you some survival skills you’ll need when you go to Canada. Like how to make yourself come.”
“What?”
“We don’t want you unable to function and flying back every two days to get your brain reset by a good orgasm.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You love it. Here, I’ll show you. Give me your hand.”
“I know how to masturbate, Harvard.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Now, be quiet and show me,” I demand.
For the next few hours, we bury the ghosts of our pasts and lose ourselves in each other.