Not Broken: The Happily Ever After(57)

She looked up at me. I wiped the tears from her cheeks only to have new ones take their place. “I do love you, Calida. Without a doubt.”

She closed her eyes, fresh tears spilled free. I watched the rise and fall of her chest as she took deep audible breaths. Her arms fell from my waist, and although I didn’t want to let her go, I released my hold on her.

She opened her eyes and looked at me. Her hand came up to cup my face, and I leaned into her touch. Stretching up on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me. I was shocked by her actions, but my body quickly responded to hers. I put my hands on her hips, bringing her body closer to me. My tongue slipped into the warm comfort of her mouth.

Her hands closed around my hair, and she moaned as her tongue wrestled with mine. My dick grew hard, restricted painfully by the jeans I wore. Cupping her ass, I rubbed her body against my erection. Having her close to me like this drove me crazy and I feared I’d come in my pants at any minute.

Holy Shit!

I pulled away, disentangled her arms from around my neck, and took a step back. What the hell was I doing?

Her eyes were wide, and she brought her hand to her lips.

I took another step back. “Shit! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done any of that.”

She wrapped her arms protectively around herself. Watching her do that gutted me. I diverted my eyes to the shorts I’d dropped.

I reached down to grab them. “Try to get some sleep.” I turned to leave, fully expecting her to lock the door afterward.

“You don’t want me now.”

I stopped, unsure if I’d heard her correctly.

I turned back to face her. “What?”

“You...you wouldn’t look at me that next day. And...and now I’m here, and you can’t get away from me fast enough.”

“What! No! That’s...that’s not—”

“That is exactly it!” she yelled. “It’s why you couldn’t look at me that morning, Malcolm. It’s why you can’t look at me now. Admit it. Now that you know, you see me differently.” She covered her face and turned away. “Why did I come here? What was I thinking?”

Turning back around, she headed toward the door without looking at me. I stepped in front of it, blocking her escape route. Surprise flashed across her face, but it was quickly replaced with a look of fear. We needed to get through this. I couldn’t keep letting her run away.

“Move, Malcolm.” There was a tremor in her voice when she spoke that made me second guess my plan of action.

“No. Not until you hear me out.”

She stepped back. I hated that she was scared of me for any reason, but I needed to talk to her. She needed to know that what she thought was wrong.

“I want you. Lord knows I want you in the worst way. Don’t ever doubt that.”

I paused. Separation needed to be between that statement and what needed to come next. “You were raped, Calida. Hearing you talk about what he did, seeing you that night…” I stopped and took a breath.

Those emotions were still fresh, and the last thing I wanted was to lose my cool and for her to think it was directed at her.

“The reason I couldn’t look at you the next day had nothing to do with you. Well, not in the way you think. I was…am pissed and ashamed at myself for being too fucking dense to not have considered he would have done something like that. Or, hell, maybe I did, but didn’t want to admit it to myself. Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that morning was about me. I’d spent the night thinking back over everything I’d done, the way I pushed you at times, and I was fucking pissed! I was pissed I’d fucked up so badly and ignored all the signs right in front of me!”

I threw the shorts to the floor. “I...I wanted to be someone that you could count on. I...why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because…the way you all looked at me when I was in the hospital. That was hard enough. The pity. The disappointment. I couldn’t handle it, so if you had known, it would have been worse. Besides, who was I going to tell? Macy, my best friend, she didn’t talk to me for months. She could have died because of my actions. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me any more than they already were.”

“It wasn’t pity or disappointment, Calida. It was fear, sadness, hell, a whole slew of emotions, but never disappointment. As for who to tell, anyone. I was there, or tried like hell to be there. You had your parents, you’re paying a small fortune to Dr. Carr. You had options, Calida!”

“Obviously, I didn’t see it that way. I pushed it down. I tried not to think about it. I lived with him. I was married to him. Every day I was in fear of him killing someone I loved if I didn’t behave. So what if he was angrier one time over the next? The end result was the same. I couldn’t focus on it! I couldn’t! You all wanted me better. It was like none of you knew how to act around me, so I just pushed it down. I got really good at pushing it down. I had to. You all wanted me better, so I was better.”

My head reeled with the new information. Just when I didn’t think the hell she went through could have been any worse, she proved me wrong. The anger and pain from the night I’d found out boiled to new heights. More than once. He’d done that do her more than once? I took a breath, needing to remain calm for her sake.

“Yes, we wanted you better, but that didn’t mean you needed to hide your feelings from me. From any of us.”