Page 60 of Fighting for Irish
“How long did it go on?”
“Oh, he got bored with me after a year.”
“A year?”
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “I think he became impotent, but I never knew for sure. But then he decided just because he wasn’t enjoying me didn’t mean others couldn’t. So for a price, he allowed his friends to visit me instead.”
Holy fuck.Horror washed over him, twisting his gut in knots for the young girl in his arms who’d been abused so viciously. How she could bear any man’s touch was a miracle. Aiden pulled her in tighter, though whether it was more for her comfort or his he couldn’t say. “Christ, baby, I’m so sorry.” His voice was barely a rasp due to the golf ball of grief now stuck in his throat.
“There’s no reason for you to be sorry; you didn’t do it.”
Her behavior since they’d gotten out of the shower had grown more detached. Like she was tucking herself away and leaving a robotic shell behind to continue the conversation. He didn’t like it. As much as he hated seeing her cry or get upset, he’d welcome that as opposed to this disturbing…nothing.
“Besides,” she added, “it’s over, so no big deal.”
“Kat, none of that has anything to do with who you are.”
“Yes, it does.” She sprang up from his lap, adjusting the towel under her arms and glaring at him as though he’d just insulted her. “I didn’t fight them! I let them have sex with me. Like a goddamn whore!”
Aiden grabbed the towel rack over his head and pulled himself to a standing position. Her hysteria was escalating as she revealed more of the self-deprecation she must have lived with most of her life. To think she’d been so violently mistreated made him absolutely murderous. He tried to go to her, to offer her what little comfort he could, but Kat slapped his hands away.
“Don’t you get it?” she cried. “Vanessa never would have allowed anything like that to happen to her. She would have slept with a knife, a gun, done something! If I’d been more like Nessie, none of that would’ve ever happened. But I was too weak and scared. I deserved what I got.”
“Fuck that,” he growled, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a quick shake. She’d gone too far. Aiden would sooner chew off his arms than listen to that bullshit. “You never deserved any of it. Not one second of what they did to you. You were just a kid, for chrissakes! I don’t care if you were walking around that house naked and shaking your ass. He had no right to touch you. None of them did. You understand me?”
Some of the tension leaked from her muscles as she nodded ever so slightly. She sniffed hard and choked back a sob with little success. She hugged herself around her middle and peered up at him with an almost dazed look. Her voice was flat with a sad acceptance. “He took everything from me, Irish. My innocence, my self-respect. All my firsts. I can never get any of those things back. They’re gone forever.”
Aiden cupped her face and willed her to believe him. “I know it’s hard not to live in the past. I struggle with that every fucking day. But you’re free now. Free from everyone who’s ever hurt you or held you back. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. I don’t know anybody who could’ve walked in your shoes and come out the other side half as amazing as you have.”
A glimmer of hope passed over her features. “You mean that?” she whispered.
He made an X over the left side of his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” She gave him a wan smile, but he wasn’t about to get choosy. He’d take what he could get. Using the heel of one hand, she wiped the wetness from her eyes, dragging any remaining mascara down her pink cheeks. “Come on, kitten,” he said, scooping her up in his arms. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Like a child, she curled into him, already half asleep from the exhaustion of reliving her nightmares. He carried her into his room and laid her in the center of the mattress. After removing her damp towel and drawing the sheet over her small frame, Aiden sat next to her and lightly brushed the hair away from her face that had freed itself from her braid. Her lashes stood out in wet spikes and her lips were red and swollen from crying.
If he had any artistic talent whatsoever, he’d paint her tragic beauty, hoping to purge the image from his mind. But as it was, Aiden knew he’d never be able to forget the way she’d looked as she broke down and bared her soul-deep pain to him in the bathroom of a rented cabin in the swamplands of Louisiana.
When he was sure she slept, he stretched out next to her and continued to stroke her hairline as the waning moon traveled across the sky. To the marrow of his bones, he resented that he couldn’t take away her pain or go back in time and prevent that bastard from ever touching her. He was a hell of a lot better at tearing people apart than he was at putting them back together.
God help whoever tried to hurt her now, because there was no doubt in Aiden’s mind…he’d kill them without even blinking.
