“Do you remember me asking you to go? Telling you to go? I should have listened to you and come with you when you asked.”
He turns me in his arms and tilts my chin up with a finger. “None of this was your fault. I’m going to make sure you that you get the vengeance you deserve, Giovanna. Every person who played a role in harming you will die. And you will be the one to pull the trigger on the one who violated you.”
I rest my cheek against his chest, watching the wisps of smoke float by. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“Don’t thank me, baby,” he says, his voice strained.
I lean back, looking up at him. “Thank you for rescuing me. For not giving up on me. For taking care of me. For loving me for all these years, through everything—”
He silences me with a kiss. Against my lips he says, “Baby, do not thank me. You saved my life. Youaremy life.”
I kiss him back, hard and sweet. “Can I thank you for bringing me here?”
“I’m glad—” he starts, then swallows. “I’m glad it helped.”
We stay like that as the fire dies, his arms tight around me, the thump of his heartbeat against my cheek.
“Tommy?”
“Yes, sweet girl?”
“I need you to do one more thing for me.”
34
Tommy
It’s not until we get back to the safe house that she tells me what she needs me to do.
We’re in the shower, washing away the smoke and sweat from the junkyard, steam curling between us. She runs her hands over my chest, slow, deliberate, then winds her arms around my neck.
She feels so fucking good, I can’t help but get hard, but I don’t touch her beyond washing her hair, massaging her shoulders, and kissing her back every time she presses her lips to mine.
“Tommy?” She’s looking up at me with those big hazel eyes, her lips wet and parted.
“Yes, sweet girl?”
“Can we…” she traces patterns in the water running down my chest, “can we do the panty thing again?”
I can’t help but growl, nuzzling into her neck, my hands slipping down her back. “Abso-fucking-lutely we can.”
Grinning at her, I pull back, but she’s not smiling.
She glances down, then back up at me like she’s summoning the courage to say what she wants to say. “Will you also…tie me up?”
Red flags go up in my brain. The look on her face says this isn’t a simple ask; there’s more to it.
“Tie you up how?” I ask carefully.
“Spread eagle. On the bed.”
I freeze. “Like you were tied up when you were—”
She nods, looking up at me nervously.
FUCK. NO.
My jaw tightens. Dr. Rossi’s words echo in my head: no wrong way for her to heal. But there’s no fucking way I want to recreate that shit show. She doesn’t remember what happened to her, but I had to watch it. Twenty-two fucking times, I watched it. And that’s not counting the hours I tortured myself, examining the videos, trying to hear her, see her, figure out where the fuck she was, who was assaulting her.
