When I finally make it upstairs, after a quick, rough shower of my own, there’s no sound of her shower running. I knock on the door once, firmly, and I hear Sienna’s voice, soft from inside, call out.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Damian.” I wonder if she won’t answer the door, if she’ll tell me to go away. She’d be within her rights to do so. I swore I’d protect her and… I hurt her tonight. I can argue with myself that it was forced, that we had no other choice, but at the end of the day, I still hurt her. I still ruined something that I never even planned to have with her. And the thought of how good she felt, how easily I could have come in her, even with all of those eyes on us, even with how it all happened…
I feel like a fucking monster.
“Come in.” The sound of her voice, inviting me in, feels like utter relief. I open the door, stepping inside as I run a hand through my wet hair, dressed now in sweatpants and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. I see Sienna’s gaze skate over me from where she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands gripping the sides. On the dresser across from the bed, there’s a tray with a half-eaten sandwich and a pile of chips that look picked at.
I don’t know what the fuck I'm supposed to say to her. How do I apologize for what happened? How do I explain that having her in that warehouse, having those animals touch her, was the closest I've ever come to losing my mind completely?
She looks beautiful, even like this, even tired and pale. There are dark shadows smudged under her eyes, and her hair is wet, bound up in a knot at the back of her head, slicked back across her scalp. She’s wearing a pair of tiny cotton sleep shorts with small flowers printed on them, and a pink tank top with lace scalloping along the edge. It’s all I can do not to let myself look at her small breasts, at the imprint of her nipples against the fabric.
She looks young and clean and beautiful, and I have to clench my hands into fists to keep from reaching for her.
All I want is to touch her, even after everything. I’m a fucking monster.
“How are you feeling?” I manage, my voice sounding tight and strangled in my throat. She bites her lip.
“Better,” she admits, on an exhale. “Cleaner, at least. You?” Her voice sounds clipped, everything between us tense and awkward. My jaw tightens.
“I’m fine.”
She gives me a look. "Damian."
"What?" I blow out a sharp breath, and she rolls her eyes.
"You're allowed to not be fine. After what happened tonight, you're allowed to be fucked up about it."
“I didn’t protect you,” I bite out. “And you were threatened—” I can’t get the words out, can’t say out loud what those animals threatened her with. Rape. Slavery. Human trafficking. All of the worst, most vile things in existence. “They made you perform for them?—”
“They madeusperform for them,” she says gently, her voice so calm and soft that it astonishes me. How can she sit there, calm and thoughtful, not coming out of her skin? I feel like I can’t sit still, like I won’t be able to breathe until I tear Russo’s empire down stone by stone around him and leave him bloody and tortured in the middle of it.
I couldn't protect her. I let them take her in the first place.
"It's my fault," I say finally. "I should have seen the ambush coming. Should have taken a different route, had backup, something."
Sienna looks at me with gentle exasperation on her face. “You can’t be prepared for everything, Damian.”
“That’s my job,” I bite out. “That’sliterallymy job. And I promised to keep you safe?—”
“You got me out of there.”
“Konstantingot us out of there. I didn’t do shit?—”
“You kept us alive. If you hadn’t been able to perform, if you had refused, I—” She swallows hard. “I know you had a plan.”
“I didn’t,” I admit. “My plan was to keep them off of you by doingthe one thing I swore not to do, in the worst possible way, until Giovanni let us go or I saw an opening to get my hands on a weapon. That’s a fucked-up plan.”
“You did what you could with what you had.” She exhales. “I’m not angry with you, Damian.”
“How?” I stare at her. “How are you not angry with me? I fucked you in front of a room full of men who wanted to rape you. I fucking got hard, Sienna. I shouldn’t have been able to do it. It shouldn’t have feltgood?—”
Her teeth sink into her lip. “It felt good for me, too,” she admits softly. “Not because of them. Because ofyou. And I think it was the same for you. It wasn’t all of that turning you on, it wasme.”
“I shouldn’t have been able to?—”
“You’re a man, Damian.” She laughs softly. “You’ve been sayingI shouldn’tandI can’tandI won’tsince our wedding night. But we keep crossing those lines, because you want me. Because I want you. And tonight, that was stronger than anything they wanted to do to us, than any fear or hurt they wanted us to feel.” She shrugs. “I think that means something. It means something to me.”
