Page 149 of Cross Checked
He sat back against the pillow, calm as ever, like he hadn’t just scrambled my entire nervous system with a kiss to my nose.
“So, tell me what you can give me, Pip.” His hand resumed stroking my hip, and then he just waited for me to be ready.
“I can give you what I can get through,” I whispered. “Enough to corroborate it if it ever comes to a courtroom. Enough for you to understand his depravity. But I’m not going to sit here and paint a picture of my trauma. I spent too many years trapped in it already.”
My throat tightened.
“The specifics are ugly enough. Yes, he raped me. More than once. And honestly? One is just as brutal as a hundred when you’re the one who has to live with it.”
His hand stilled against my hip.
“You have evidence against Luke?” he asked.
“Mountains of circumstantial.”
The name sat there between us for a second, and I could feel him mentally calculating the dismemberment of Luke’s body if he ever got him alone.
He shifted behind me, not enough to move away, just enough that his chest pressed more firmly against my back. “That sounds ominous, Pip.”
“That sounds prepared.”
“You are one of those girls that has a crime drawer, aren’t you?”
I huffed a weak laugh into the dark. “It’s not a crime drawer exactly.”
“Crime binder?”
“Don’t make it so weird.”
“It was weird before I got here.”
I tipped my head back enough to glare at him, even though he probably couldn’t see much of it in the dark. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Stupid man. Stupid dry voice. Stupid confidence. Stupid emotionally disturbing cheekbones probably still being emotionally disturbing in the dark.
Cade’s thumb started moving again, slow and steady against my skin. “Look, I don’t want details you don’t want to give me. I don’t need a picture of your trauma to know how it’s affected you. I care more that you trust me enough to show me your worst moment and let me sit beside you in it.”
My throat tightened so fast it hurt. “You would never sit beside me,” I whispered. “You give John Wick energy.”
His mouth brushed the top of my shoulder, and I felt the smallest curve of his smile against my skin. “Accurate.”
“See?”
“I just want to know you, Bliss.” His voice dropped around my name, heavier now. “And knowing you isn’t knowing what happened to you. You can tell me what you want to tell me, and I’ll play mental Jeopardy with the skimmed-over pieces.”
My laugh came out watery and ridiculous. “Mental Wheel of Fortune is a better analogy.”
“Jeopardy is literally categorized.”
“You cannot at any point call out, ‘I’ll take abusive ex-boyfriends for three hundred, Alex.’”
“I wouldn’t lower myself to ever address Luke as your ex-boyfriend.”
That hit me in a place I wasn’t ready for, so naturally my mouth saved me before my heart could embarrass itself.
“I’ll take brother’s best friend trope for six hundred.”
