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I pause, waiting for some kind of reaction, but he simply looks at me with wide eyes, waiting patiently for me to continue.
“The first time they held me down and injected me with a tracker, and I hated it but I could survive it, you know? But then they came for me again… They drugged me. Chained me up. They sprayed me with hoses and whipped me over and over again, and they recorded every moment of it all. My skin split open and they just kept going. When I finally gave up hope, they unchained me and left the cell. The next day they were throwing Zeke in the cell with me…”
Pausing, I look down at my hands, cracking my fingers one at a time, preparing to bare my soul. Preparing to give him the worst of it all.
“Cole?”
I flick my eyes up to meet his, “Yeah, sorry… I’m… When Zeke was thrown in with me, I was almost happy and that’s so messed up, I know that. But I wasn’t alone. I was already breaking, and he was there to hold all of my pieces together while we held out hope that you guys were going to find us. They gave us time… I don’t know how much because it was just dark down there all the time… but when they came back… I was ripped right out of his arms Riot. They chained me up, they held him down… They beat him while I watched and then… They… He…” my breathing picks up again but I close my eyes and swallow the nervousness before I begin again.
“They… put something inside of me Riot… and they made him watch.”
His hand slips down my arm until his fingers are weaving between my own, and he grips my hand tightly. He’s not running away. He’s not recoiling in disgust. He’s just sitting quietly.
“Riot, I’m ruined. They tainted me… I’m unclean, and I’ll never be the person I was before. If you… Well… I’d understand.”
I don’t say anything else, because I don’t know what else I can say, so instead I drop my head and sit in the silence. Only a few moments pass, and while I know it’s only seconds, it feels like hours of sitting in nothingness, waiting for something, anything that tells me he still wants me.
“Cole,” he begins, as his index finger slips beneath my chin and lifts my face until my eyes are level with his.
He inches closer until our noses nearly touch. “Lover. Can I?”
The organ in my chest seizes up, but I nod my head and the tip of my nose grazes his as he leans in and drops his lips to mine. His kiss is soft, tender, and he doesn’t move to deepen it. He simply fuses his lips together with mine, sighing against my mouth as though the weight of the world has shifted, and that’s when I feel it. It’s when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Releasing my lips, he looks at me, swiping his thumb across my bottom lip. “Whatever you need from me, it’s yours, lover. You went through terrible things that I’ll never be able to fully understand, but none of those things change anything that I feel for you. I love you Cole Lennox. You’re not ruined. You’re perfect, and I will spend the rest of my life proving that to you.”
The tears that merely sporadically escaped from my eyes before, are now falling at full speed; streaming down my face, dripping onto Riot’s arm.
“I love you Riot,” I whisper, wondering how I could have ever doubted the way he feels for me. Sinking into the absolute warmth that is his touch. Knowing that he means every word that falls from his lips.
I’m not ruined.
Chapter forty-five
Zeke
Riot left to go handle business this morning with Travis, and I stayed here in bed, just watching the way Cole’s chest rises and falls while he breathes. Yesterday we each had the time we needed with Riot to work through the fallout. To work through each of our doubts and insecurities. The things that were widening the space between us.
The thing is, I haven’t been able to talk to Cole, and I don’t know how. Our path has been unconventional. He didn’t jump into this relationship for me, he did it for Riot and I slowly let my guard down around him. I let him in moment by moment, and then life as we knew it halted the day we were taken.
In the time we were stuck in the cell, everything shifted. Cole needed me, and I was there, but what he doesn’t know is that I needed him too. It broke me every time they hurt him, but we went through this thing together that no one else could possibly understand. We saw each other in our most vulnerable states and when the dust settled, we held each other together to keep from falling apart.
Somewhere along the line, Cole became a part of me, and now I don’t think I could ever live without him.
“Mmm, I can feel you looking at me,” he mumbles as he lifts his arm up and drapes it over his face, blocking out all the sunlight.
“I like looking at you Cole,” I rub my cheek into the pillow as I inch my hand closer to him slowly brushing my hand up his arm, savoring the way his warm skin feels beneath my fingers.
He’s been through so much, and I don’t want to cross any lines, but all I want to do is touch him. I feel like any space between us is too much space, so I do all that I can to close it. Sliding his arm down off of his face, he opens one eye, peering over at me, and one corner of his lip turns up into a smile.
“We haven’t… talked… you know?” I gulp, as Cole reaches out and runs his hand through my hair.
“Yeah…” he sighs.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t… that I couldn’t…”
“Hey, no,” he shakes his head, scooting closer to me, eating up all of the space between us. “Things happened down there to both of us, and there was nothing you could have done to stop it. But you kept me breathing, Z. You kept me from slipping into oblivion.”
“Cole…” I whisper just as he presses his mouth to mine, his pillow soft lips capturing my own, sending goosebumps sprawling across my flesh.