Page 62 of Damaged Desires

“What are we going to do?” Dani asked, looking up at me with wide eyes. The planner without a plan. The person in charge without an answer. It wasn’t a role she relished. It wasn’t a role that fit her. It wasn’t a role that fit me either.

“That’s exactly what we need to discuss.”

My brain was already reeling with ideas, thinking three steps ahead to every move and countermove we could make with an unpredictable, wild woman on the loose.

Dani

THE ARCHER

“Dark side, I search for your dark side,

But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face,

Then I hate my reflection for years and years.”

Performed by Taylor Swift

Written by Swift / Antonoff

I eyed the clothes I’d flungawayin Nash’s hotel bathroom. I had no desire to put any of them on again. Just the thought of the smells made me want to return to the toilet. But I couldn’t leave the room in only Nash’s T-shirt.

He seemed to realize the same thing. “Stay here. I’ll go get your suitcase.”

“Is there a robe in the closet? I can use it to go to my room.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t want you near a room with your name tied to it. Stay here.”

Then, he was gone, leaving me to my swirling stomach and thoughts of a woman I didn’t know putting poison in my drink. I pulled myself up to my feet and stared at my pale reflection again. Another fucking bathroom that wasn’t my own with someone I didn’t recognize staring back at me as I faced the fact I hadn’t wanted to face before. Faced thewordI hadn’t ever wanted to tie to me. I was a victim. I’d been a victim a year ago, and I was a victim now.

I’d denied it, even when my therapist had held it out in front of me.

I hadn’t been afraid when Fenway first cornered me in the elevator at The Oriental. I’d just been annoyed. Frustrated that I was having to fend him off for the hundredth time.

I pushed at my lips, watching them move in Nash’s bathroom mirror, but I wasn’t seeing them. I was seeing him. Me. An elevator.

Fenway’s words, fueled by alcohol and lust, echoed through my head. “I was wondering when we’d finally have some privacy.”

“It hasn’t ever been on my must-do list,” I told him dryly with every ounce of disgust I could roll into the words.

“You’ve got such a goddamn mouth on you. Let’s see if you can use it for something actually worthwhile,” he said as he hit the elevator stop button.

Stunned by his words, I didn’t react, allowing him to close the distance that remained between us with barely a step. He locked one hand on my thigh and one on my shoulder.

“Are you insane as well as drunk?” I asked, shoving at him, but his fingers were like meat hooks, pushing into the nerve endings until they almost spasmed. It was then the fear settled in, working its way into my entire body, limb by limb, and making the moves my dad had taught me fade from my mind.

He rammed himself against me, setting his repulsively moist mouth on mine, shoving a slobbery tongue against my lips. I recoiled, teeth hitting his tongue and his lip, head hitting his nose, and causing him to swear.

“I’m going to teach you to play nice, Daniella,” he growled. “To crawl like someone should have taught you a long time ago. Teach you your place on your knees with my belt wrapped around your neck.”

I shoved him, using what arm strength I had as I tried to get some leverage, but he simply slammed me back against the elevator wall. One hand held me there while the other squeezed my breast as his knee crashed into my pelvic bone, sending a wave of pain through me.

I reached up and raked his hand with my nails, and he grunted in disbelief and displeasure. It caused him to loosen his hold just enough that I could elbow him in the side and try to sidestep him. He grabbed me around the waist and slapped me with such force that my head flung backward and hit the wall. I kicked out with a stiletto-clad foot to hit his knee, allowing me enough space to reach the controls and unstop the elevator. I hit the mezzanine button just as he grabbed at me again from behind.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that, you little bitch,” he said as his fingers tore at my dress, smashing me face-first into the door. He leaned his body and his erection against me as he reached for the buttons again.

Fear and anger and panic pounded through me as I tried to pull my body and his away from the control panel. The doors dinged and slid open, a startled couple standing there…