Chapter 9 #2
Finally, she said, “I pretended to orgasm while he was hurting me. I threw my head back and gave the performance of my life. Except the tears coming from my eyes weren’t from ecstasy, but pain.
And he bought it, hook, line, and sinker.
I thought he was going to rip my pants off after I finished moaning and shaking like a porn star, but his touch gentled instead.
He petted me for several minutes while I pretended to come down from my orgasmic high.
Then he turned my head and made me kiss him.
For a long time. I was still crying and shaking from the pain in my chest—but I made out with him.
Kissed him as if I couldn’t get enough, all the while trying not to gag.
Then he reached for my hand and cuffed it to the bed.
He sneered at me and said he knew I was a whore all along, just like all women were, and that he was going to enjoy hurting me in the future, but he was going to plant his seed inside me right then and there. ”
Sadie took a deep breath, then said, “But before he could do anything, his phone beeped with a text. I don’t know who it was, maybe Jeremiah, but he knocked me out at that point.
When I came to again, he dragged me out of that room down to another, where I saw Milena and her son.
Jeremiah was holding JT, and he and Jonathan said goodbye to each other.
Then Jonathan brought me back to the bedroom.
He kissed me again, and I thought if I kissed him back, if I was docile, maybe I’d find a chance to get away.
But he smiled at me. An evil, awful smile that made me want to puke.
He told me he wanted to finish what he’d started earlier.
He cuffed one of my wrists again then leaned over to grab something from a drawer in the table next to the bed.
“The thought of what he might have done to others on that same bed…of what he wanted to do to me…made me so angry! My foot was moving before I’d even thought about it. I kicked him with all my strength and he smashed his head on the table and fell over like a dead tree in the forest.”
She closed her eyes then finished quickly. “I ripped off the Velcro cuff on my wrist. I didn’t wait around to see if Jonathan was coming for me or not, I just ran out of there.”
“You amaze me,” Chase told her softly.
She shook her head. “I kissed him, Chase. I willingly let him touch me.”
“Bullshit,” he refuted. “You said it yourself, you were giving help time to get there. Giving me time to get to you. You were selfless and brave. You did what you had to do.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if I’d slept with him. If he got me pregnant.”
“Wrong,” Chase said in a harsh voice. “Even if you didn’t fight him, it still would’ve been rape.
He was in the wrong, Sadie, not you. But you should know, even if he did take you, with or without your consent, even if you were pregnant as a result, it wouldn’t change how I feel.
Not one fucking bit. You’re mine, Sadie Jennings.
And any child you might’ve had as a result of that night would’ve been mine.
Ours. Sparky, I don’t care if you’ve slept with one man or a hundred.
From this point on, you’re mine. No one else exists for me. ”
“You can’t really think that,” Sadie argued. “All guys care how many men a woman has been with. Especially when one of those men could’ve been Jonathan.”
“Would you think less of me if I told you I’d been with a hundred women? That I’ve had girlfriends since I was fifteen?”
“Well…no.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a guy. It’s different.”
“No. It’s not different at all. It’s fucking society that’s convinced women it’s okay if a man sleeps around and doesn’t care about his virtue. It makes him a stud. But a woman has to guard her virginity like it’s the eighteenth century, otherwise she’s a slut and a whore.”
Sadie stared at him with wide eyes. He saw the moment his point sank home.
“I see you’re getting it. Look, we all have pasts.
Good, bad, and ugly. There are things I wish I’d done differently growing up, but I can’t change any of it.
All I can do is go forward. But you making a conscious decision to do what you needed to in order to buy yourself and Milena some time isn’t something you should ever be ashamed of. ”
She dropped her head and it thumped down onto his shoulder. She scrunched her arms under her and laid her palms flat on his chest. Her legs separated and she straddled his hips, drawing her knees up next to his body. Chase folded his arms around her.
Several minutes passed and neither said a word. They just enjoyed being close to one another.
Finally, Sadie lifted her head. “He hurt me, and I was afraid it would be a really long time before I wanted to be with someone else. Or even wanted to be around men in general. But from the second I saw you, I knew you were different.”
“I am different,” Chase said immediately.
She grinned, and he was so relieved he would’ve given her the moon if only she’d keep smiling at him like that. “You’re mine.”
“Yeah, Sparky, I am. And I hope you already know this, but I won’t ever hurt you like that asshole did. Not ever.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be here if I thought different.”
“So is that why you think Jonathan wants you so badly?” Chase asked, wanting to get the subject completely done with before they moved on. “Because you bested him?”
Sadie shrugged. “Maybe. I think he thinks I betrayed him in some way. Pretending to orgasm and kissing him made him think I wanted him. But when I kicked him, he must have realized it was all a lie. He’s obsessed with me.
Or the babies he thinks I can give him. I think he’s built up this fantasy in his mind about starting a new school and having red-haired little girls following him, at his beck and call for his perverted urges.
And he’s convinced I’m the only one who can give them to him. ”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. He probably feels like you’re his possession. He grew up under his father’s thumb, so he sees women as being good for one thing and one thing only. Instead of disappearing, which he should have done, since the FBI is looking for him, he can’t get past losing you.”
Sadie shivered over him, and Chase would’ve smacked himself on the back of his own head if he could’ve. “I’m sorry, Sparky. I don’t need to continue talking about this.”
She immediately shook her head. “No. You aren’t saying anything I haven’t thought about myself. But I think it’s more than that. I tricked him. Pretended to like what he did. I think I hurt his ego, because I made him look stupid and because I got away from him.”
Chase nodded. “Yeah, I can see how that might make him even more obsessive.”
“I just…I really want him to leave me alone.”
“It’s better this way,” Chase said, then hurried to explain when she stiffened.
“Think about it. What if he did disappear? If he’d gone to Mexico to hide out?
He’d still be feeling the same way he does now.
Possessive and like he owns you. But we wouldn’t know about it.
You’d go about your life and not worry about him, thinking he was long gone.
But then one day he could just waltz back into town and grab you. ”
“You’re right,” Sadie agreed immediately, then shuddered. “When you put it that way, I’m totally glad he’s impatient, immature, and slightly insane.”
Chase carefully turned, keeping Sadie tucked into him until she was on her back and he was over her, resting his weight on his elbows. He tangled his fingers in her hair and held her head still. “You good?”
“Good?”
“Not worried over what I’m going to think about what you had to do in that room with that asshole?”
She dropped her eyes, then bit her lip as she looked back up at him. “You really don’t think less of me for letting him touch me?”
“No, Sparky. Not even a smidge. In fact, hearing about what happened from your perspective only makes me think more highly of you.”
For several seconds neither of them said a word, then Sadie whispered, “Make love to me?”
“If I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, you tell me,” Chase ordered.
“If I touch you and it brings back too many bad memories, say something. If we start this and you panic, tell me. I don’t care if I’m inside you and you have a flashback, you say the word and I’ll stop.
The last thing I want is this to be something you’re tolerating rather than something you want more than your next breath… which is how I want you.”
“Chase…” Sadie said, her voice breaking.
“You promise?” Chase pushed.
“I promise. I want you. Have from the moment I saw you. Please, make love to me.”
“Nothing would please me more,” Chase said, then dropped his head to hers.