Vicious Carousel (Suncoast Society #25)(12)

She wanted to break down crying from the tenderness of their actions, but managed to choke her tears back. She didn’t want them to think they were hurting her.

She was hurting, but not because of them. She also realized she would have to watch herself, not throw herself into some stupid sort of trap of falling for them because they were the ones here helping her, and misplace her affections for them.

It would be too easy, after the hell she’d been through, to fall for someone…kind.

Non-assholish.

Even a guy who was slightly a jerk, but not abusive.

Nope. Not again. Yes, she knew what she wanted and needed, but she obviously wasn’t any better at picking out kinky partners than she had been at picking out vanilla ones.

For now, she was off the market. She would get her shit together, get her life together, figure out how to become independent again, and then, maybe, she’d think about playing.

She wouldn’t even date. Screw that. She could play with someone and get orgasms, never even leave the goddamned club with them, say good night to them, and go home, safely, alone, and without worrying about getting punched because she ate three too many pieces of macaroni.

If someone wanted a relationship with her, they would have to f*cking bend over backward like the goddamned Rubber Man to prove they weren’t faking it until she decided to submit to them and let them have control over her.

Even then, she wasn’t sure, after this, if she ever could open herself up to that kind of relationship again. It was what she desperately wanted, even needed, but not now…

Maybe never again.

The death of that possibility hurt almost as much as her physical injuries.

“I’m sorry,” she said as they finished brushing out her unruly brown hair.

Jack had ordered her to grow it long. She preferred keeping it around shoulder length, just long enough to pull back if she had to, but with its natural curliness, at that length it was easy to wear loose and natural if she used product in it to keep it from frizzing out.

Not that he’d let her buy anything other than the cheapest shampoo possible.

“Why are you apologizing?” Nolan asked.

“Because I know this is a pain in the ass,” she said. “And I appreciate the help.”

Kenny picked up the bottle of shampoo and looked at it. “Whoa. No offense, this is what you like using?”

“No. I hate it It’s all he’d let me buy. It was the cheapest stuff.”

“Hold on.” She heard him mutter something under his breath as he turned and left the bathroom. When he returned a moment later, he carried a bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner. “Sorry they’re not perfect for your hair type, but it’s better than that shit.”

They took the handheld showerhead down, started the water, and got it warmed up. Working together, the two men shampooed her hair and then applied the conditioner, letting it sit while one of them soaped up a washcloth and gently started working on her legs and arms.

She hissed with pain when the cloth touched her right ankle.

“Sorry,” Kenny said. “It’s rough.” The doctor had left it unbandaged and told her to keep an eye on it, keep it clean, and to put antibiotic ointment on it if it looked like it might be getting irritated, but that the best thing for it would be to heal without a bandage. The links of the chain had dug into her flesh as she’d first tried soap and water, and then a little olive oil, to slide it off over her skin.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It needs to be washed off.”

It had been brute force and desperation that finally did the trick, hence why she’d been sitting on the couch to do it, and hadn’t moved yet when Jack had arrived home early.

But there’d been rough points on some of the links that dug in deeper than others. They gave her a tetanus booster at the hospital last night, just in case, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had one.

“Can I ask a dumb question?” Nolan said.

“Yeah.”

“Why the chain? How long had that shit been going on?”

“Only a couple of weeks,” she admitted. “I think he did it because he realized I was getting close to leaving.”

“Ah,” Kenny said. “Trying to rein you in even more, huh?”

“Yeah.”

As they bathed her, she softly told them the full story, somehow managing not to cry her way through it. When she finished, both men remained silent.

“Well?” she asked.

Nolan let out something that sounded like a disgusted grunt. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You’re a good person. He preyed on your trust.”

“I’m a dumbass, is what I am,” she said. “I ignored red flags. Well, in my defense, he was good at hiding the red flags at first. I let him sweet-talk me. Had I held my ground longer, he probably would have lost interest in me and moved on to someone else. The more he hooked me in, the more I was hooked, until I didn’t realize that he was just reeling me in and dangling me on the end of his line like a trophy bass. I accept I was stupid.”

“Not all men are like that,” Nolan said.

“I know. But for now, I plan on getting my life back together. The last thing I need right now is a relationship.”





Kenny wasn’t sure, but he thought Nolan also breathed a sigh of relief at Betsy’s statement. If she stuck to her guns, she had a good chance of pulling herself out of this.