He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, that lip that he loved so much. “Even Francine, for all her viciousness, her jealousy, the things she did to you, your grandmother and the others in Sea Haven, there is a part of you that felt sorry for her and wished you could have found a way to help her. You have such compassion in you. It’s impossible not to love you for you. How can you be with me and not know that? Not feel that? Not be totally confident in that? Is it because I was so humiliated for you to know the things that happened to me when I was growing up? Because it wasn’t just when I was a child. That shit continued through my teen years, Zyah. That’s difficult for a man to have to admit to his woman. Did I hurt you so much that you’re finding it hard to forgive me?”
She was too compassionate for that. More than likely she had to come to terms with the fact that he killed so often. That he not only killed when he was young but was still doing it when he hunted— and found— pedophiles.
Her gaze never left his. Her mind was firmly in his. He felt her there, filling him when he’d always felt so alone.
“And you know there is no other woman for me. Right, baby? I don’t cheat. I would never cheat on you, in spite of my name.” He needed to reassure her even though she’d never asked for that reassurance.
“I’m well aware of that, after seeing your memories that you really didn’t respond sexually to other women, that it wasn’t something you just said. You meant it. I couldn’t believe it at first because we were like crazy rabbits.” She flashed a little smile. “We still are. It’s always a marathon with us.”
He was quite willing to begin a marathon anytime, but they had things that were too important on both sides to get out in the open. He needed to be just as fair. She was willing to be honest. He had to be just as honest.
“I love you, Zyah. That isn’t going to change. I want you to be mine any way I can have you. I would prefer to marry you and have you live here with me. When your grandmother is ready and wants to move out of Sea Haven, we can have a place built on the property or put her closer in one of the rooms. But she isn’t going into a care facility. That’s my preference.” He sat back in the chair, waiting to see what she would say.
She rubbed his thighs, her gaze still on his, still without flinching. “I love you too, Player. Very much. That isn’t going to change. I want you to be mine any way I can have you. I am very traditional and would prefer marriage. I love the house. I definitely don’t want my grandmother in a facility, so we can discuss what would be best when the time is right. I do feel worry in your mind, so I think you need to tell me what that’s about.”
That was the big problem with having a really intelligent woman and one that could read minds—at least his. Her hands were distracting, rubbing along his thigh, up close to his groin without actually touching where he needed to be touched. He reached out and slowly unbuttoned the first five buttons of her shirt. It was oversized, and the two edges parted easily, giving him access to the perfect globes of her tits. Her nipples peaked for him instantly. He needed to touch her while he talked to her. Feel her soft skin. Tell himself she would understand and not condemn him or the others.
“You just have to come out and say it, Player.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m not certain how to start. We, meaning Torpedo Ink members, are so different. Everything about us is different, and people don’t get us. Or understand us. To the outside world looking in, we’re some kind of perverts. Really depraved people. Czar had this idea that we could start over here. Live differently. Find a way to fit in somehow. But we can’t. Not really.”
She stayed silent, but her hands were gentle on his thighs, and in his mind, he felt the stroke of her mind, as if somehow she was encouraging him to continue.
“I always felt different from the others. Guilty even. I had something that was valuable to Sorbacov. He had a type, little boys, so yeah, he raped me like he did the other boys. He liked to hurt kids and see them hurt. He especially liked to see girls hurt and then teens hurt. I got too old for him. He would bring his friends, ones who would torture, ones who were really sick and depraved, with extreme sexual practices, deviant practices. They killed so many. I escaped most of it because he wanted bombs built. He didn’t dare take the chance that I would be harmed that badly. The others . . .” He broke off, shaking his head.
“Player, I saw what he did to you.”
He nodded. “I know you did, baby, but it was nothing in comparison to what he did and had done to the others. It was difficult to be the odd man out, to know I wasn’t subjected to that extreme the way they were. Sometimes I wondered if they thought I was a traitor.”
“No way. They had to know you were loyal to them. I see them with you.”
“I was a kid, Zyah. Kids think all sorts of mixed-up things.”
He transferred his hands to her hair. All that silk. He loved her hair. He loved everything about her, especially her compassion. She had enough for both of them, which was a good thing, because he wasn’t certain he had much left in him.
“We kept our eyes on one another at all times. We never had clothes. We had to watch out for one another. Seeing each other naked didn’t exactly arouse interest. Then being trained the way we were in sexual practices. We were taught to have control over our bodies by performing on someone while someone else was beating us or using us brutally. The idea was to get the other person aroused while not being aroused. This was done in front of one another. If we could see one another we could keep each other from being killed.”
He saw the dawning comprehension. “What you’re saying is that when Torpedo Ink has parties together, just you, you have sex with your partners but with others in the room because you feel safer.”
He nodded. “Most of the others feel so much less inhibited if they feel the partner they love is safe.”
“You don’t seem to have any inhibitions.”
“Like I said, I was luckier than the others in that I wasn’t as sexually tortured as they were. But I did get used to being with them. And looking out for them. Not to say I can’t do without that, but it does separate me even more.”
He felt her moving through his mind. How did he explain Torpedo Ink to her? He needed to try. He wrapped her hair around his fist.
“We aren’t whole without one another. We try to be, but in order to survive, we had to become one person to get us out of there. We took pieces of one another and wove ourselves together. That’s the only way I have to describe what we did. I need them. They need me. We all are trying to live our lives separate but together if that makes sense. We’re trying to find a way to do what Czar would like us to do, but we’re predators in a world we don’t understand. We were kids, raising each other. Czar was our moral compass, and he still is.”
She nodded. “I can see that. So what you’re asking me is would I ever be willing to go to one of these parties and have sex with you where others might see us?”
“Not at the clubhouse. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that, because there are other chapters now, people I don’t know as well. But here at the house, if the others come over. Or on a run if we go and we’re all together in a campground. How comfortable would you be around the others with me?”