Chapter Three
Sunny handed over the card to the poor woman, who had a black eye marring the left side of her face and the same sort of fearful cowering Sunny had seen over the years.
The same sort she haddoneover the years.
Still, she could read the people who came into a women’s shelter, and this was one of her many no-shows.
People who walked through her door fit into three groups. The ones who wanted help, the ones who weren’t ready but were close, and the ones who might never be ready.
This woman was group three, and despite that black eye, she’d go right back to the monster who had done it. It killed Sunny, but the one thing she’d learned was that she couldn’t save people who didn’t want to be saved yet.
The woman—she’d given the name Kelly, but no doubt that was fake—had spent a night at the shelter. Whether it was fear or love or not wanting her life to change, she’d chosen to sign out come morning.
Sunny couldn’t force her to stay, so she did what little she could, which was ensure the women who left knew where to get help if they decided to.
“Call that number.” Sunny tapped on the back of the card. “They’ll come and help.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s a group that’s known for helping out in cases like this. They have some branches all over the country, but this is the local one. We’ve worked with them a lot, and they’re safe to call.”
The woman held the card carefully, as if just as afraid of it as she were of whatever was back home. “I don’t think I should bring this home.”
“It’s safe. The card reads for a landscaping service, and if you call it, that’s how they’ll answer. All you have to do is say ‘I need a quote on sunflowers,’ and they’ll know what that means.”
“Laurance, he’s scary…”
“So are they, trust me. I’ve never seen a case they couldn’t handle. They’ll make sure you have safe transport back here if you need it, day or night, no matter what else is going on.”
Her words took her back to a few of the men from that group who had come by the shelter, always with plenty of notice so she could make the more skittish residents scarce. The group was large, from what she’d seen, and well organized. They’d set up security for the shelter, helped with dangerous transports, and often arrived before police in the event of a problem. The woman who had run the place before, Beth, had been the one to make contact, and while Sunny would have women call them, she’d never reached out to any of them personally.
They might be nice, but she wanted nothing to do with them. Sunny knew men weren’t worth it, especially not the ones who came around, the ones who walked with that sort of confidence. Any man was a threat, buttheseones seemed like far too high a risk.
Kelly nodded and tucked the card into her pocket. “Thanks.”
Sunny wanted to say so much more. She wanted to take the woman’s hand and promise her therewasa light at the end of the very dark tunnel she was trapped in. She wanted to tell her that other women had gotten through it and that she could too, that she didn’t need whatever man had beaten her down and told her she was worthless. She wanted to tell her she was strong, that shecoulddo this.
But people didn’t hear things until they were ready, so Sunny let her go. This woman had to walk her own path, decide when she’d had enough.
Sunny just hoped she’d see her again.
The shelter was quiet, which was fine by Sunny. She’d worked there for four years, ever since she’d spent her first six months post-ex hiding out there. It had made her realize how important a place like that was, that it saved lives, that she had to be a part of it.
She couldn’t do anything about the man who had abused her—he was rich and well-connected in her little town back home—but she could damn well help womenhere. It felt like her own little rebellion, a way she could strike back at the man who had hurt her, even if it wasn’t direct.
She tried to push that aside, to focus on the small administrative tasks that filled her day.
A flash of darkness came to her, the wonderful press of hot, demanding lips, the exquisite bite of pain, the deep masculine groans.
It had happened all damn morning. Each time she thought she was focused, she’d get another memory, as if the night with those men at the club refused to be forgotten.
I found out what I needed to.
It wasn’t what she’d gone there to learn, but things didn’t always work out the way she wanted. She’d gone so she could walk away knowing that it wasalwayswhat it had been before, like some scientific method where she tried to recreate her old disaster. She’d wanted to wake the next morning able to forget it, to move forward, to know that all Doms were like her ex and that it wasn’t for her.
Instead, she’d left more conflicted than ever.
The night had been beyond her wildest fantasies. All those dreams she’d had, the ones where she’d woken sweaty and drenched between her thighs, had paled in comparison to reality. She felt herself in a way she hadn’t in years. It was as though they’d helped her find some part of herself that had gone missing.