Page 148 of Chasing Hope

Pleasure, while I feel it in small bursts, is something that I have to deeply concentrate on if I want it. If I ever want to climax with Carter, I can never focus on the here and now, never focus on him and how it feels to have him moving inside me.

I have to go far away and use my imagination. If I pay attention to what’s happening, if I focus on what he’s doing to me, the warm pleasure disappears and my body shuts down and I stop feeling anything at all.

No man likes a woman who isn’t enjoying it.

Even if I’m not, I pretend to.

Not that Carter ever notices.

So, as he ties my wrists together and places a mask over my eyes, I do what I always do—I try to think of a different situation, a different world, a different person. This isn’t happening to me, but another woman. A woman who enjoys sex, a woman who revels in it and feels every sensation in her body.

Carter groans in my ear and it’s nice for a moment. It sends a jolt of warmth down my chest. Conjuring up an image of a woman being loved and devoured by her partner in a completely different setting, I begin to feel it, the beginning of ecstasy as I spark to life, letting go of control for a short while.

Carter is close too. I can tell by the sound of his breathing, his groans and grunts, but then his hand reaches up and covers my mouth as I moan.

It’s a move he’s never done before, one no one has done before.

Suddenly, as quickly as the warmth that entered my system, it disappears.

My body turns to stone. I stop breathing. I’m trying not to move, trying to make myself as still as possible, because it’s not Carter that I feel moving over me.

The flood of panic and disgust hit me like a freight train.

Flinging my eyes open, I’m met with the darkness of the eye mask, but I’m not alone in the darkness.

It’s his head I see. It’s his body moving over mine. It’s his hot breath in my ear. It’s his disgusting moans. It’s his face floating above my own as he smacks his hand down over my mouth as I cry out in pain.

I’m no longer twenty-three-years-old being intimate with my boyfriend in our bed.

Suddenly, my body feels small, so incredibly small it terrifies me.

Carter pulls back. He’s no longer moving, he’s calling my name, asking what’s wrong. He’s removing the tie and the eye mask but I’m stuck, utterly trapped in the memory that holds me in its clutches.

I’m still not moving. I’m still not breathing, despite my lungs screaming for air.

It won’t go away, the feeling of him forcing himself on top of me. It feels like a phantom caress. I feel like the little girl that was forced to be quiet.

I feel it all.

And I hate it.

I fucking hate it.

I can feelhim.

“Evie, what’s wrong?”

I was raped,my mind screams in answer.

And once the words pop into my head, it’s all I can hear.

Just that one sentence, over and over and over.

I was raped.

I was raped.

I was raped.