“No, you don’t. I told you. Some things are meant to be forgotten.” He scans the room and his gaze lands on the bed. He starts to get up, and I grab him.
“What are you doing?”
“Turning this fucking song off.”
“No! It was working. I need to do this. For us. For you. For me.”
“I don’t care if you ever fucking remember him.”
“I have to remember him. The time bomb that is my mind will haunt us both, and I don’t want that.”
“It’s only a time bomb because you say it is.”
“In my gut, I am certain that we need to know who that man is—and tonight is all about taking control. You said that yourself. We’re taking control, and we’re doing it together. So take it with me now. Help me go to those bad places and face them. Re-create what this song is to me.”
He stares down at me, the seconds ticking by like hours, his expression unreadable, until I can’t take it anymore. “Kayden—”
“Why are you on your knees?” he demands.
“I was acting out the flashback.”
“Tell me about that memory,” he orders softly.
“Do you really want to hear this?”
“Yes,” he insists. “I absolutely do, but only if you want to tell me.”
“I don’t even want this part of me to exist—but if I don’t tell you, I can’t ask you to help me face it.” I inhale and let it out. “He made me undress while he did not. That’s how he operated. He wanted me to be exposed and vulnerable. Once I was naked, he ordered me to my knees and stood above me, watching me.”
“What did you feel?”
“At that point, I knew he was dangerous. I played submissive to survive, while I was plotting an escape. I think . . . I did escape.”
“What did you feel, Ella?”
“Dread.”
His hands come down on my shoulders and he stands, taking me with him. “Whoever he is doesn’t matter. I know Adriel told you about Evil Eye. I know you doubted me—”
“No. No, that’s not it. I was worried about you. I wanted—I want—to protect you.”
“There are many things I want from you, Ella, but protection’s not one of them.” He cups my face. “He doesn’t own you. He doesn’t own your past. He damn sure doesn’t own me. And he doesn’t even get to own this song.” He turns me, placing my back to his chest, his lips near my ear. “You said I could have everything. Now I’m going to take it.”
fifteen
“Everything, Ella,” Kayden repeats, his fingers splaying wider on my belly, while his other hand moves to my bra, unhooking the front clasp and then flattening between my breasts. “And everything includes your fear, Ella. And the shame I know he made you feel. I’m going to take those from you tonight. I’m going to hold them so you don’t have to. And I’m going to give you permission not to remember, since you won’t.”
Shame. That word radiates through me with cutting accuracy, and I know then that I’ve not even touched where that comes from, or what that man did to me. I squeeze my eyes shut, and for a moment, I’m back in his bedroom, holding that gun, wanting to kill him, and battling a war inside me of right and wrong, and a desire to punish him for punishing me. Emotions well inside me, so many emotions I cannot contain or name, and the stupid music I wish I’d never turned on lifts in the air. Take me to church. I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies.
“Whatever this song means to you,” Kayden declares, his cheek pressing to mine, “it won’t be the same the next time you hear it.” He cups my breasts, his lips dragging down my cheek, to my ear. “And that means I’m going to take you places you don’t know you want to go.”
“Yes,” I say, not because I refuse to remember, but because I hate what it makes me feel. “Take me there.”
He nips my shoulder, a sharp erotic bite that he follows with the pinch of my nipples. “What are you thinking of?” he demands.
“That I want more.”
He runs his tongue over the wounded skin. “And now?”