blue, her lips flatten out in a grimace. “No. I recognized the tattoo of the red phoenix on his rib cage. It was one of the things I distinctly remembered that night. One of the other guys had one on his wrist too.”
This news jolts me so hard I come flying up off the couch, clutching Sela by the hips so she doesn’t fall off. I quickly set her on the floor and take three steps to the side, away from her. My mouth hangs open in disbelief, and my left arm comes up across my chest, over my right shoulder, where my fingertips press into the area where the top of my phoenix tattoo resides.
She watches me carefully, knowing the impact this is having.
“I wasn’t there,” I croak out, thinking the reason she’s watching me is to see if there’s culpability.
Immediately, her eyes grow apologetic and she steps toward me quickly. I step backward but that doesn’t stop her. She barrels into me, hands coming up to clasp to the sides of my head. She presses her fingers in and holds me tight. “I know you weren’t. You couldn’t. I know you, Beck, and I know you’d never do that to a woman.”
“It’s why you ran,” I murmur. “The morning after we met. You saw my tattoo . . . when I was in the shower. Didn’t you? So you thought then that I might have.”
“It was before I knew you, Beck,” she chides me. “Yes, it freaked me out, but by the time you came to my apartment the next day, I had reasoned it out. There’s no way a man who gave me my first orgasm . . . made me feel safe and secure enough to let go, could ever do that to me. I don’t understand the connection with the tattoo, but I know it doesn’t revolve around rape. I know it in my heart.”
Chapter 7
Sela
Beck pulls away from me, takes another step back, and his hand covers his mouth as he looks at me with wild eyes. He reminds me of a spooked animal, but I knew the tattoo connection was going to send him in a tailspin.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Beck,” I say softly, hoping to calm him down.
He lets out an almost hysterical bark of a laugh as his hand drops. “I kicked you out of our condo when you told me you were raped. I . . . I . . . took the side of a gang rapist over yours, and fucking threw you out in the hallway like a piece of trash.”
“Easy, baby,” I coo as I walk up to him. “You need to let that go.”
“Fuck,” he cries out in a deep bellow of misery as he looks at me with tortured eyes. “How could you even trust me? I’m a fucking friend and business partner to a rapist; I didn’t believe you when you told me when JT—”
“You believe me now,” I say firmly as I take one more step into his space and place my hands on his chest. “And you apologized for that crap that went down yesterday. You had reason to be pissed at me. I broke into your office, Beck. I betrayed your trust too, yet you’ve let that go. You have to trust that I can let it go too.”
He drops his head with a loud sigh and curls one hand around the back of my neck. He tips his face until his forehead rests against mine. “I’m so fucking sorry this happened to you, Sela. I’ll help make this right, I swear it. I’m going to make JT pay for what he did.”
I don’t say anything for a moment, letting Beck continue to take deep breaths while the gravity of everything he just learned settles in. Finally, he lifts his head slightly, grazes his lips against my forehead, and asks, “Why were you in my office?”
Taking him by the hand again, I lead him back over to the couch. I think he needs to be sitting for the rest of my story, because I know it’s going to piss him off.
After a slight push, he sits back down, but rather than straddle his lap again, I sit my butt on the coffee table, directly across from him. Our knees brush against each other, a comforting touch. Still, I remain poised and alert for him to flip out on me again.
“When I learned that JT was one of my rapists, I became