Saving Dancer (Savage Brothers MC #2)(56)

So I’m weak. I let him take me back to the vehicle. I let him usher me into the passenger seat. I let him drive me home. I let all this happen and don’t say one word. I watch as he grabs the basket of food and carries it inside with us when we get home. I watch all of it, like it’s not really happening to me. It happens in slow motion in my brain, and I can’t bring myself to say one word.

Jacob leads me into the bathroom and sits me on the toilet. I watch as he runs water, adding my favorite bubble bath. I’ve still not spoken. He keeps talking and it sounds like it’s coming at me from far off in the distance.

I’m like a marionette and he’s controlling the strings. I say nothing when he begins to undress me, just lifting my hands and doing as he says. I don’t even understand it. I should be mad, I should be screaming at him. I can’t. Something is broken inside of me. With his final lie to me, something severed. I don’t know how he hasn’t noticed.

He helps me get into the tub and the hot water does feel good. I close my eyes and let the heat invade my body and ignore the one lone tear that falls down my face. I feel Jacob get in behind me. His legs come around each side of mine and he wraps his arm around my waist and brings me back into him so my back is against his front. He urges my head to fall back against his chest and despite the heat of the water bringing me somewhat back to life, I go. I lay my head there and wait for his heat and that of the water to work magic and heal me. I’m so deadly cold. Yet, it is so deep inside I know nothing will penetrate it.

I lie against him, listening to his heartbeat and notice that he has stopped talking. He has turned the water off. Now there is just silence. How long has there been silence?

“Carrie, you have to believe me, baby. I wasn’t going to let her touch me. I wouldn’t do that to you. I just… my head is f*cked up, Care Bea…”

I stiffen when he starts to use my nickname and he must have felt it. It seems I’m not so robotic after all.

“My head is f*cked up Princess, it is just things… there’s things you don’t know Carrie, things I can’t share—not yet. Things that sneak up on me without me even realizing it. She said shit…and it’s not an excuse, sweetheart. It’s not, but I promise you I wasn’t doing what it looked like. You would have seen that a few minutes later, I promise.”

“You haven’t been going to therapy.”

“Carrie, I…”

“They called Jacob,” I stop him before he lies again, because that is what is wrong. When we talk about what is really wrong with him? When we talk about what is causing all the trouble? That is when he lies.

“I can’t talk about it, Carrie. Especially with some college idiot, with some initials after his name, who has no idea what I am feeling or what I am going through. There are things Princess that if you haven’t lived it, there is no way you can help someone else.

“Then find a support group, there are those around, Jacob.”

“I can’t Carrie, I can’t talk to strangers about…I can’t, not even for you.”

“Then talk to me, give it to me.”

“Damn it Carrie, I can’t tell you! I can’t go there, not right now—hell maybe not ever, you don’t know, Carrie. You can’t know…”

“I do know. I know it all, Jacob.”

He stops and his body goes hard like stone behind me.

“The night I came into your room, before you…before… You were dreaming. I heard, Jacob. I know,” I say quietly, praying I’m not doing this wrong.

I have been attending a Kentucky Rape Crisis Outreach support group with Nicole. We hadn’t told anyone, though I figure Dragon knows—I didn’t ask. I’ve only been to four meetings though and we’re mostly dealing with the effects rape has on friends and family members. What if I’m handling this all wrong? I don’t want to make things worse. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.

“I can’t talk about this with you, Carrie. Don’t ask me to.”

My heart sinks. “I know you blame me Jacob, I blame myself too. I understand and that’s the reason I should probably leave. How can you want to be with someone who is responsible for…?”

He stops me and his hand caresses my face and turns it towards him.

“Stop that, Carrie. I don’t blame you. I was angry sweetheart, so angry when I got out and I focused that anger on you, but what happened is not your fault. It is not your fault at all and I don’t want you blaming yourself.”

“Jacob…”

“Let’s go to bed, Carrie. Let’s just hold each other for a while. Then we’ll get up and eat and spend the night holding each other. I’ll sleep with you tonight. Let’s ignore the world around us and concentrate just on the two of us.”

“Jacob, I don’t…”

“We’ll start small, let’s take a nap. Let me hold you in our bed. We both need that. Okay?”

I don’t remember agreeing, but he must have taken my silence for doing so. He lifts me out of the bathtub. Standing me on the rug, he takes a towel and wraps it around me, after first securing one on his hip. He lifts me again, taking me into the bedroom. He proceeds to take the towel from me and dries me off. He kisses my forehead, my eyes, my lips, and then my shoulders, before finally placing me in the bed and pulling me close. We lie there in the dark, as if we’re both afraid to say anything that might destroy the tenuous truce we have in this moment.