Page 104 of Crave Me
His breaths turn heavy and labored, but mine aren’t any better. “This wasn’t supposed to happen to me, Evan,” I repeat, my strength crumbling. “But it did because I trusted the wrong man to do the right thing.”
“We have to go to the police.”
“No,” I snap, anger burning like lava through my veins. “It’s been more than a year, and you saw the video. Did it look like I was fighting him off? No, I was begging him for it.”
Repulsion paints his face a vicious red, but I see the damage Bryant has caused flash across Evan’s features. He doesn’t answer me. He doesn’t have to. “If I go to the police, everyone will know, and everyone will put a name to the face on that screen.” I lift my arm, motioning toward his desk, but it feels so heavy. “Even if it goes to trial, the only thing a judge and jury will see is the slut he made me be.”
Evan storms from my reach, his fingers digging through his hair as he walks toward the conference table. He doesn’t take more than a few steps before he grips a chair and sends it flying.
“He can’t get away with this,” he hollers. “I won’t fucking let him.”
“He already did,” I remind him, my voice barely registering. Evan turns to face me, fury spreading along his frame. “In the morning when I woke, he was lying next to me. I knew what happened, I’d remembered enough. But the worst part was remembering that I’d enjoyed it.”
I sniff when those green eyes, the ones with specks of gold, mirror all the pain I feel. “He told me he knew I loved it by how I responded, and that it was the best fuck he ever had. It made me sick. But as much as I hated him then, I hated myself more.”
Evan shoots across the room, swooping me into his arms. In his strength, I lose what remains of mine. “I didn’t even finish getting dressed before I ran out of there. I blocked his call. I refused to see him. And when he showed up at my door with that sweater I wore that night, I threatened to go to the police. ‘You know you liked it,’ he told me, well-aware it was exactly what he needed to say to shut me up and guarantee I’d never breathe a word to anyone.” I force myself to speak. “And I never did.”
I don’t cry much. There are only a few times in my life I remember shedding more than a tear. Once, was when we learned what happened to Sofia. The other times involved my brother Finn, and more recently when Evan told me he loved me. I didn’t even cry when my own damn father died. I thought I should. You’re supposed to, right?—when you watch the man who gave you life lying in a casket. But I couldn’t. Not when he caused too many of my mother’s tears to fall.
Except I cry now. I cry for not leaving Bryant long before that moment—for believing he wasn’t the bad guy that I knew deep down inside he always was. Mostly, I cry over how much it must have hurt Evan seeing me do what I did.
Deep-seated pain lingers in his strong features. Strong. That’s who he is yet unbelievably gentle when it comes to me. Even now as he raises his hand, it’s not in anger. He strokes my cheek gingerly, like I’m the most important thing that’s ever walked this earth, despite that it’s far from how I feel.
“I’ll take care of it,” he whispers.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” I say, pushing the words out when they lodge in my throat.
“No one will know unless you disclose it. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to make him fucking pay.”
“What?” I ask, unable to understand.
His hands glide to my hips. “There are two things I won’t stand for,” he bites out, the rage from before surging. “Someone else touching you, the way I touch you, and someone hurting you. This piece of shit did both and I’m going to end him.”
“Evan?” Clifton calls. He stills at the door when he realizes he interrupted more than a simple moment.
I give him my back, swiping my cheeks. “One moment,” Evan tells him.
The door shuts quietly. I don’t have to look to know we’re alone.
Evan closes the small space separating us. He doesn’t touch me. Not this time. But I feel his presence directly behind me. “I have to go,” he tells me. “But you have my word, I’ll take care of this, and take care of you, always.” He presses a kiss against the back of my head. “This . . . all of it, changes nothing between us.”
The sound of his footsteps echo behind me until the door closes with a snap.
He says this changes nothing between us. That doesn’t mean I believe him.
Nor does it stop my tears from running faster.