Page 12 of Ravaged Hearts

Hope’s distraught expression almost floored me. “God, Vaughn.”

“No.” I gently clasped the nape of her neck. “Let me get through this. If you have to, you can have a pity party when I’m not around to witness it.”

“I don’t want a pity party. I want to kill the people who hurt you.”

“My Gatita is turning into a leona.”A lioness.Mylioness. “But like I told you on the beach last week, there’re none left to kill. I wish my brothers had been thoughtful enough to leave one or two for me.”

If I’d been able to murder the motherfuckers who’d ruined my skin and corrupted my mind, would that have made any difference in the man I was now? Would it have been enough to rewire my brain and set me on the right path again? I doubted it.

I swept Hope’s hair behind her shoulders, keeping my gaze locked on her delicate throat so I could carry on. “Soon enough, infection took hold, so the pilot was delirious with fever when his team rescued him. Much later, they told him that they’d thought they were too late. That the filthy, mangled body on the floor surely couldn’t be alive. But the stubborn pilot survived. The injuries to his body eventually healed. The ones to his mind?” I clicked my tongue. “Not so much. Now, every time someone reaches for him, he feels like he’s back inthat tunnel, and he goes into survival mode.” My eyes met Hope’s then. “And he fucking hates the beast he’s become.”

Hope’s chest shuddered as she drew in a breath. Maybe I shouldn’t have burdened her with this story. Maybe I should’ve kept it from her to protect her.

She shifted on her feet, and her hands twitched at her sides like she didn’t know what to do with them. “I wish I could hug you.”

“I know. I want that, too, but…” I shook my head.

This. This was why I had to fix things. Fixme. If I couldn’t do it for myself, then goddammit, I wanted to get better for Hope.

Because she deserved more than the scraps I had to offer. She deserved someone she didn’t have to be careful with or worry about or be afraid of. If I was going to keep this incredible woman—and I already knew I wanted to—then I needed to be awholeman again. Not the fractured, unstable mess I was now.

Which meant I had to change. But change was hard. Change was scary. And in this case, change was dangerous. For the first time since Venezuela, I had enough motivation to choose a different path, and if that path let me keep Hope, it was the only one I wanted to take.

“I don’t want my torturers to control me from their fucking graves anymore. I need to take back what they stole from me. I need to own my skin again.” I took Hope’s hands and placed them behind my neck, covering them with mine. Then I pressed my forehead to hers and found the courage to say something that terrified me. “Help me, Hope. Please.” A knot threatened to close over my throat. “I think you’re the only one who can.”

“Of course I’ll help you. I’ll do anything you need.”

“Good.” I nodded. “Because I have an idea.”

6

HOPE

As Vaughn shut off the water, my heart reeled from the horrific story of his captivity. The awful things he’d endured. My God, it hurt to think about.

Without even getting a towel, he took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom at a fast clip.

“Wait,” I said. “Do you want to try touch desensitization again?”

Repeated exposure to skin-on-skin touch was the only way Vaughn could overcome his dread. It hadn’t ended well the last time we’d tried, and he’d been dead set against further attempts, for fear of harming me. Maybe opening up to me with his story had emboldened him to give it another shot.

“Uh-huh.” Vaughn dropped my hand to rummage through the side pocket of his duffel bag.

“Right now?” My voice lifted in surprise.

“Yeah.” He shrugged, and water droplets cascaded down the grooves of his muscular back. “Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just thought?—”

Vaughn spun and handed me something. A zip tie. I frowned. “What’s this for?”

“For me.” He took another tie and made short work of looping it around his wrists and pulling it taut with his teeth.

Then it dawned on me what he wanted. Vaughn’s bright idea was to restrain himself while I touched him, but I wasn’t convinced it was a great plan at all.

I held the unused zip tie in my hands. “Are you sure about this?”

“No. But at least you’ll be safe.” He lay on the bed and gestured me closer.