Page 41 of Heir of Ashes
“I kissed you to prove that I wasn’t repulsed and to shut you up long enough for me to say what I needed to. I had nothing else in mind. Nothing else,” he emphasized, his eyes never wavering. “It baffled and confused me when I realized how terrified you were. Only later did I realize the conclusion you had jumped to.”
“Anyone would have reached that same conclusion,” I shot back.
“No. Forcing a kiss hardly signals rape. You were terrified to the point of paralysis.”
“Forcing a kiss is how it begins,” I snapped.
“Maybe, for someone with rape in mind. However, you don’t think about a demon when looking at a pumpkin unlessyou’ve watched the movie before. Forcing a kiss is just that—unless a person has already been abused. Otherwise, it takes more than a kiss for someone to leap to that conclusion.”
I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut. My sarcasm died, and I looked away. This man’s perception unnerved me. He could read me so well I wondered if I had been fooling the PSS with my poker face all these years. It made me … uneasy instead of understood. The intense heat of his gaze burned the back of my head. I ignored the urge to scratch the spot.
“Like I thought,” he murmured.
I glanced at him, at the pity and sympathy in his eyes—along with something else—and had to make an effort to keep my expression neutral. “I don’t know what convoluted illusion you carry inside that box, but I assure you, Logan, you’re way out of it.”
He didn’t even blink. Damn it, I used to be a very good liar.
“I’d never have forced myself on you. I’ve never mistreated a woman before, I’ve never even thought about it. It shocked me when I played the event over in my mind, the way the blood drained from your face, the way you were shaking, your eyes—”
“I said you’re wrong.” My hand closed around the letter opener.
“ … That you thought I would, and when I realized the conclusion you had drawn, I was insulted at first, then baffled. Then I wondered why you hadn’t tried to stop me.”
“I’d have killed you if you tried,” I said softly, my voice holding just the right tone of conviction to carry out the threat.
“Maybe,” he conceded, waving his left arm briefly in dismissal before returning it to rest back on the steering wheel. “After you were over the shock. Anyone else would have struggled first and then gone into shock later.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I finally said, more because I didn’t want to argue all night long than out of defeat.
“Was it someone back in the Society?” he persisted.
Instead of an answer, I turned and stared blindly outside.
“Tell me. I want to know.”
“Why?” I asked flatly, still looking out the window, but I wasn’t seeing the drive-thru. My mind had gone back in time, back to those awful days of my life. I had no tears left, just anger. The gentle tone of his voice only fanned the flames of my rage, making my flesh burn the way it did every time I thought about those days when I had been helpless. Defenseless.
“I want to know, so when I’m there, if I bump into him …” He shrugged. Slow tension and menace emanated from him. At that moment, when I felt his tightly-coiled anger, I finally believed he wouldn’t have tried anything on me. But he couldn’t right any of the wrongs done to me for the simple fact that he couldn’t rewind time.
“I want to help.”
I snarled, an angry sound that edged on the side of a growl. “Why? What’s in it for you? You don’t strike me as the type who goes around avenging a woman you just met. Just let it go; it happened a long time ago. I hardly remember it,” I lied. I intended to get my revenge one day, and I had fantasized about it so many times, it had become my plan—if I ever got the chance to implement it.
“How long ago?” he asked tightly.
“Damn it. Let it go.” I punched the dashboard.
“How long?”
“You’re not going to drop it, are you? Fine. I was seventeen. And before you ask, no one would have believed me, and if someone did, no one would have believed them. On one of Kincaid’s shifts, he left a letter opener behind. I stabbed thebastard’s cheek with it. I was punished for it, my abuser wasn’t. But no one ever tried anything again.”
“Kincaid’s idea of help was a letter opener?”
“It did the job.”
There was nothing Kincaid could have done besides getting himself fired. He knew that, I knew that, and I’d rather have had him help me from the side than have had no one at all.
“Why didn’t you defend yourself? Isn’t the blocking bracelet useless on you?”