“Ava! Ava! Goddammit, stop! Fucking hell, baby, wake up!” A familiar voice broke through the haze her bloodlust, causing her to pause. Mac? Had he come to save her this time? She turned toward his voice, wondering why he kept telling her to wake up. Couldn’t he see that she was being attacked? “Ava . . . open your eyes. Baby, look at me.”
Her heart started racing as a different kind of fear set in. As her eyes fluttered open, she struggled to keep them open against the bright glare filling the room. As she blinked, slowly adjusting to the light, she looked at the man holding her pinned beneath him in dawning horror. “No, oh, please no,” she whispered as she looked at the blood tricking from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Red welts dotted his cheeks and neck along his chest and arms. “Please tell me I didn’t do that to you,” she cried even though she knew there was no other explanation. She had been fighting what she thought was an attack against her when all the while it had been all in her head. It was Mac. The man who would never physically hurt her.
“Shhh, it’s okay, baby,” he whispered repeatedly as he pulled her against his battered body. She completely lost it in what she now recognized as the shelter of his arms. Her sobs filled the room along with her garbled apologies.
She couldn’t understand how something like this had happened. She’d had nightmares about the night of her attack, as anyone would who had been through that sort of trauma. The dreams had almost completely stopped, though, several years ago, and she’d never once dreamed of hurting her attacker. In her dreams, she was always the victim, always. “I—I don’t know what happened. I thought he . . . was back. That I was being—hurt again.” When she pulled back enough to look into his face and saw the wounds she had wrought there, her stomach churned. Oh God, she was going to be sick. With no time to explain, she sprang from Mac’s embrace, stumbling toward the nearest bathroom. She barely reached the toilet before her stomach upended what little it contained into the porcelain bowl.
Ava tried to protest when Mac walked up behind her, then gently pulled her hair back while she succumbed to the dry heaves racking her body. He rubbed her back, making soothing sounds until the spasms finally passed. Leading her around as if she were a child, he helped her over to the bathroom sink and brought a spare toothbrush out of the cabinet for her. He poured her a cup of water and put the toothpaste on the brush before handing it to her.
She stood before him completely naked, having slept that way. After all that had transpired between them, modesty was the furthest thing from her mind. Mac had donned a pair of boxers at some point. He reached behind her and started the shower. Without saying a word, he checked the water temperature before stepping out of his boxers and pulling her into the steamy heat with him. Then he washed her like a child, before making quick work of soaping up his own body. Even though he touched every inch of her, there was nothing sexual in his movements. They were both still traumatized by what had happened earlier.
After he had dried them both, he handed her a pair of his boxers and a clean T-shirt. The boxers hung low, but she turned the waistband down a few times and managed to keep them on. The bedside clock said seven, which meant she needed to be at the office in less than two hours. Beside her, Mac dressed in his usual business attire of a company polo shirt and cargo pants. She knew he was watching her the entire time; she could feel his eyes on her.
“Coffee?” he asked as she finally returned his stare. When she nodded, he took her hand and led her toward the kitchen. By unspoken agreement, they waited until a steaming cup sat before each of them at the bar before talking.
After taking a fortifying sip of the hot brew, she closed the distance between them. The water had washed away the blood from his face, but the heat of the shower had made the welts more prominent. She reached out to touch his face, feeling tears welling once again. “I’m so sorry, Mac.”
His hands went to her waist, pulling her against him. She felt him exhale against the crown of her head. “What happened, baby? Are you having nightmares like this often?”
Sliding her hands around his waist, she let herself sink into his strength. “No, I’m not. There have been nightmares on and off but not recently. But I’ve never had one like this one. I was so determined to fight back. I was so angry. Even now, I can still remember all the hate coursing through me. I—I’ve never felt anything like it. I wanted to kill him. It wasn’t him I was hurting, though.” She shuddered at the recollection.
Mac was quiet for a moment, as if trying to gather his thoughts. “You said you’ve never . . . been with another man since that night?”
“That’s right,” she admitted, feeling embarrassed about the lengths she had gone to for years to convince him otherwise.
“So you haven’t slept with anyone either? I mean like spent the night with someone else in your bed?”
“No,” she answered, confused by his question. If she hadn’t had sex, wasn’t it obvious that she hadn’t had a sleepover either?
He removed his arms from her, and a squeak of surprise left her lips as he lifted her up to sit on his granite countertop. He laid a hand on each of her legs, opening them enough for him to settle between them. She put her hands on his shoulders, now that they were at eye level, and waited for him to continue his earlier conversation. “I’m a light sleeper, so you woke me up moving around restlessly. You were lying half under me, with my legs across the top of yours. I think since this wasn’t something—normal for you, that it might have triggered a nightmare. Feeling someone holding you down while in the midst of a dream could have changed the dynamics. Even though you were asleep, your subconscious was reacting to a threat.”
Feeling a wave of alarm, she cried, “If that’s true, this could happen again. Mac! I—I can’t do this to you again!”
Stroking her hair, he said, “Calm down, baby. I’m just thinking aloud. I think this is probably the most rational explanation for what happened. I don’t want to get into everything this morning, since we don’t have much time before work. But I think we need to discuss it tonight. Have you talked to anyone about what happened to you since that night?” When she opened her mouth to answer, he held up his hand to stop her. “I mean in detail, Avie. Not just that you were . . . violated. The whole thing from start to finish and what happened afterward.”
“No,” she admitted, feeling almost surprised herself. Of course, people knew about her past, but she’d never really sat down and gone through everything. Even right after her attack, she had glossed over some of the details. Truthfully, she could see her grandfather’s face shutting down before her eyes as she had told him what happened. After that, each time she had omitted more and more until now it was almost like a rehearsed speech. In fact, she could see that she made light of her pain. Almost as if she were talking about someone else being raped and not herself.