my glass down on my side table and opened my arms. “I’m all yours, sweetheart. Come as close as you want.”
She scrambled across the distance separating us so fast that I was almost surprised when she burrowed into my body. “You’re so warm,” she murmured as she pressed her body against mine, drilling into my side like a heat-seeking missile.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me until her head rested on my shoulder. At that moment, I didn’t give a damn if she just needed me to be there as a warm body she trusted.
The only thing I wanted was for her to feel safe.
I threaded my hand into her gorgeous, fiery mane of hair and stroked it, trying to get her to calm down.
She sighed in contentment before she said, “I’m not sure why I’m dreaming about being sexually assaulted now. Maybe because I couldn’t think about it before. I told you it was horrible, and it was. But now that I can feel every emotion, see every action, I’m so angry, and so terrified. The man had the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen, dead and lifeless, like he had absolutely no soul. Honestly, I’m not even sure why he bothered to rape me, because it was obvious that he saw me as some kind of evil he needed to banish. I think he felt that if he could conquer me, it would make him more powerful.”
I dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “Tell me,” I encouraged. “I’m never going to judge you for something that was totally out of your control.”
She nodded. “I know. It was the same thing every single night. He’d only undress me from the waist down, and then he’d pull my bound hands over my head and attach them to a long stake near the head of his cot. It never lasted long, but it seemed like an eternity. He’d always rant for a few minutes in Lanian, and then he’d spit in my face before he violated my body. I tried to meditate my way out of the whole experience during that tirade, trying to detach as much as possible.”
“What did you think about?” I asked tightly, trying not to fucking lose it.
This was about Taylor, not me, but I’d kill the bastard slowly and painfully if I could get to the rebel leader right now.
“Mostly the good times with Mac Tanaka. Or I’d try to think about beautiful places all over the world that I haven’t had the chance to see yet,” she said softly. “Anything positive to replace the bad things. I was absolutely terrified, but I didn’t want him to see that. I knew he hated me so much that I was afraid he’d end my life right after he was done.” She paused before she continued. “In my dream tonight, he did kill me. He pulled out a knife and slashed my throat. I woke up just as the dagger made contact, which was probably why I was screaming. When I first opened my eyes, I thought I was dead.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, hating every second of pain and degradation Taylor had been through. “You had every right to be horrified, and scared,” I grunted. “You were so damn brave, sweetheart.”
“I wanted to be courageous, but I wasn’t always,” she said in a shaky voice. “I feel like my nightmare was a manifestation of every fear I had while I was their prisoner.”
I tilted her chin up until I could look at her face.
Her eyes were wide and glassy from the tears I could see rolling down her cheeks.
Christ! I could hardly take a damn breath because my chest was so tight. “Nelson Mandela once said that courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. You fought your way through it, Taylor.”
“But I couldn’t fight him,” she said in a tearful voice. “And I wanted to so damn badly, Hudson. I didn’t want to lay there and submit.”
I put a palm on each side of her face. “You did it to save a friend, Taylor. Don’t ever fucking blame yourself for that because it’s almost impossible to do that when all you want to do is fight. Give yourself credit for what you did for Harlow. Don’t hate yourself for doing what you had to do. Most people wouldn’t have ever thought about sacrificing themselves to save someone else.”