Start a War (Saint View Psychos #1)(12)

There was no remorse in his eyes. He grabbed Nash’s shirt again, yanking it so hard the seams protested with a ripping sound. “Take it off.”

This time I listened. I peeled off the shirt with trembling fingers.

“And the rest.”

I blinked, and a tear spilled over and down my aching cheek. “We’re standing on the stairs. Just let me go to the bathroom.”

He twisted the front of my strapless dress, pulling down the front, exposing my breasts. “Take that dirty slut dress off. I’m not having anything in this house that’s touched another man.”

“I didn’t!”

The tears rolled across my skin in a stream while he continued to rip at my clothes. I cried out when he stripped my beautiful dress away, leaving it a sad, crumpled mess at our feet. Alcohol tainted his breath. He was still drunk.

Fear coursed through my veins, but at the same time, I knew he was right.

I’d known I shouldn’t have been wearing Nash’s clothes. I’d let him put his arms around me and comfort me, when it wasn’t his place to do so.

Caleb was right. I had acted like a slut. There was no excuse for it when I was supposed to be his.

It was in my genes, after all. How many times had I heard Jerry call my mother slut and whore? How many times had I seen him throw his fist into her face?

This was what happened when you acted inappropriately.

Caleb ripped at my panties, the only article of clothing I had left. He tore them off me until I stook naked and trembling in front of him.

His gaze rolled over my body, his dick hard beneath his pajama pants. He dropped down onto the same step and crowded in on me until I was pressed against the banister. It was cold across my lower back, and I curled my fingers around the railing.

Up close, his bloodshot eyes stared me down, and his breath came in hot, ragged pants. A mixture of desire and disgust played out all over his face. But the aggression in his stance frightened me, forcing me back until I knew that with one tiny push, he could send me over the edge and onto the cold, hard tiles below.

“You don’t ever come into this house smelling of another man, you hear me?”

I nodded quickly. “I’m sorry. I won’t.”

I knew what would come next. I’d seen it all too many times from my hiding spot beneath the covers of my trailer park bed. So when he spun me around and dragged his pajama pants down, I wasn’t surprised.

But that didn’t mean I wanted it to happen. “Caleb, no.”

His fingers only gripped me harder, punishing for daring to refuse him.

I knew better than to say anything more. My face still stung from where he’d struck me. He was a man, bigger and stronger than I was. He was capable of worse than a slap.

I wanted his forgiveness. So I didn’t make a sound when he roughly took me from behind.

It was over in less than a minute. He pulled from my body and ejaculated all over my back and ass. I bit down on my lip, refusing to make a sound because I knew that would only make things worse.

He staggered backward up the stairs, yanking his pants up as he went. “Now you smell like me again.”

I nodded, not moving, even though his cum slid down the backs of my thighs. Any scrap of dignity I’d had was destroyed, so what did it matter? I waited until he stumbled back down the hall to his bedroom, the door slamming behind him.

It was only then that I gathered the beautiful dress from where it pooled around my feet, along with Nash’s shirt and my ripped panties. I gathered them all up, shoving the entire bundle into the kitchen bin. In the downstairs guest bathroom, I cleaned myself up in the shower, scrubbing at my skin until every inch of me smelled like my honeysuckle shampoo and bodywash, and then made my way upstairs to Caleb’s bedroom.

“Go to sleep, Bethany-Melissa,” he said in clipped tones from his side of the bed. “It’s three in the morning, and you have work in a few hours.”

I nodded, padding naked across his bedroom to slip in beside him.

I normally slept in his T-shirts, but tonight, I didn’t dare ask for one.

And he didn’t offer. He rolled to his side so he was facing the other direction, and a moment later, his quiet snores filled the air.

I didn’t sleep. I lay there until the sun came up with silent tears streaming down my face. Both for the brother I’d lost and for the piece of me that Caleb had just taken.





5





BLISS





In the brightly colored space of the childcare center, the night before seemed a million miles away. Caleb had been gone when I’d woken up, and I’d dressed for work slowly, carefully putting on more makeup than I normally did to hide the angry red mark across my cheek.

I couldn’t have a bunch of three-and four-year-old’s seeing that. They’d already asked questions about everything, and my slightly swollen eye was going to be hard enough to explain.

It would have been smarter to call in sick, but I needed to work. I loved my job, and being surrounded by smiling, happy, if sometimes grimy, faces was exactly where I needed to be after a night I’d rather forget.

“Miss Bethany? Did you know that dinosaurs can eat people?”

I grinned down at Kellan, a boy I’d had at the center since he was a baby. “I bet you’re right. If dinosaurs were alive today, they’d definitely try to chomp up little boys who didn’t eat their vegetables. That wouldn’t be you though, would it?”