I said, my own voice sounding foreign to my ears. The silence in the room was uncomfortable, almost tense. Braeden’s arms didn’t comfort me. They felt like a vise holding me in place. I didn’t want to be in place right now. I think I wanted to shatter. Was this how it would be from now on? Would everything feel changed? He didn’t automatically do as I asked. Instead, his dark-chocolate stare shifted to me and flickered with bleakness and pain. This was going to be hard on him too. I wasn’t the only one who was going to be irrevocably changed by rape. But I couldn’t think about Braeden now. I could scarcely think at all. I was too violated, too shocked, too dirty. How could this happen? Why didn’t I know until now? My God, I’d been living months and months inside a body that had been invaded, violated, and used.
