Chapter 10: I need to explain

CONTENT WARNING: MENTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

(Jaime)

I feel like there’s a fog clouding my brain. I try to open my eyes, and when I manage to pry one eye open, bright light stabs into my eyeballs. I shut my eyes tightly closed again. Where am I?

I have this weird sense of disorientation, yet the subtle sterile scent I’m so used to tells me I’m safe, in a known space. Except, I’m in a bed, and I have this dull ache all over my body.

I try again, squinting my eyes open this time, and the brightness reveals itself as the ceiling lights in what is clearly a hospital room. There are machines beeping and I turn my head slowly to take in the heartrate monitor, the drip, and a… dialysis machine? Was I poisoned?

And then the horror of a memory seeps into my consciousness. Panic grips me as I try to recall what had happened. Flashes of being overpowered, the sickening feeling of hands roughly touching me, hitting me… violating me. The blinding, searing agony as they savagely assaulted me, raped me.

I gasp and try to sit up, only to wince as pain shoots through my body. The fog of sedation is clearing fast, but the details are a blur, the memories fragmented and hazy.

My heartrate spikes as the panic sets in further. Then I catch site of my hand and my eyes widen in shock. There’s a strange, intricate mark etched into the skin of my wrist. I reach up to touch it. It looks like a tattoo, but the lines feel slightly raised under my fingertips.

Panic once again surges through me, but it’s flow through my body is interrupted by the door opening. I turn to see a man standing there, his presence imposing yet strangely comforting. I’m suddenly gripped by this weird attraction towards him.

Why? Who is he?

I want to say something, but my brain struggles to form words. My heart pounds in my chest as I’m trying to make sense of all these conflicting emotions coursing through my body. I stare at the man just as he stares at me too.

He comes closer, slowly, and I keep staring at him like an idiot.

“Jaime,” the man says softly, his baritone voice carrying a hint of something...familiar. “I’m Logan. I need to talk to you.”

I study him, all nearly seven feet of muscles and rugged handsomeness. My mind is a whirlwind of questions and confusion. I can sense an inexplicable bond with this man, but how? And why?

He takes a step closer, his eyes filled with a mixture of concern and something strangely deep. He looks as though he held the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“I know this is overwhelming, but I need to explain…”

I suddenly found my ability to speak again and interrupt him in the rush to get the words out that’s been swirling in my mind.

“Who… who are you? Do I know you?”

He gives a tight smile and steps a little closer to the bed. “May I?” he asks, extending his hand towards mine. I take a few seconds, still confused, and when I nod my consent, he reaches out further and take my hand in his giant one.

I gasp as soft tingles of warmth and pleasure explodes on my skin where he holds my hand gently in his. I stare at our hands. What the heck?

He clears his throat.

“There’s so much I need to fill you in on. That I need to explain to you. But I’m also very much aware that you have just experienced the worst kind of trauma, and you have a lot to deal with right now. So, I’ll try my best to explain what I think you might be able to handle right now, then we take it slowly from there, okay?”

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His eyes, the color of moss, was as kind and gentle as his words, and it soothed me. In fact, since he came into this room it’s as if someone had applied a calming balm on my soul, my mind and my heart. I feel like I can face anything as long as he’s there with me. How strange.

I nod at his words, waiting for him to continue. He still hasn’t answered my question.

“As I mentioned, I’m Logan. Logan Hunter. I’m the one who brought you to the hospital after my men found you in the river.”

My heart gives a little jolt at that. The river. I remember half waking from the sudden freezing splash, being tossed around, and dunked under water until my body crashed into a thick branch of wood that had stuck out from the riverbank.

I remember wrapping an arm around that branch and half pulling myself up far enough that I could keep my head above the raging water. I remember the agony my body was in, and the realization that I was going into hypothermia and thinking ‘this is it’.

I don’t remember being pulled from the river though.

I blink at him. “Your men?” As if that was the most important piece of information he gave me.

He smiled. “Yes. The river travels through a large part of my… property… and I had men doing an inspection near the border when they came upon you. Do you remember how you got there?”

My heart wants to speed up into a panic again, but somehow, I stay calm. I nod.

“Just bits and pieces of it though. I… I was attacked from behind and injected with a sedative. When I woke up again these men… they were… they were doing things to me. Every time they noticed I was awake they would hit me and inject me with something again so that I would black out. I kind-of came to when they threw me in the river, but it’s all a bit blurry…” my voice fades of as I relive the horror.

I noticed he flinched slightly when I mentioned the abuse and the hitting. I realize that the dialysis machine was likely to get whatever they kept injecting me with out of my blood.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. I want you to know that I will bring you justice. I will find them, and you will have your justice.” He says it with a fierceness and sincerity, but at the same time in a reassuring way that left me with no doubt that he will do as he says.

“Why? Are you a policeman?”

He shook his head, trying to hide a smile.

“No. It’s a bit hard to explain without you having all the appropriate background knowledge, but in this town the police only look after issues with tourists. Us residents have a different system, or code, that we live by.”

He brushed his thumb over the mark on my wrist, and the feeling of ecstasy that gentle act invoked both shocked me and had me spellbound.

He looked me deep in the eyes as he kept brushing his thumb over the mark.

“Feel that? That’s part of the reason why I’m your champion for justice in all this. You and I… we share a bond like no other. I will tell you about that when you are well enough to leave this hospital room, if you’d let me?”

“But… I’ve never met you before. We’re strangers. How can we share a... what did you call it again… a bond? And how did that mark get there? Did they do that to me too?”

This time I was starting to panic a bit, even though his mere presence and his touch was soothing beyond ridiculous.

“This mark is proof of our bond. It was necessary to save your life and I regret that you have no memory of it. But I hope you will allow me to rectify that someday.”

This was all very confusing. But every fiber in my body was telling me to trust him, that I’m safe with him, that for the first time in my life, I won’t be alone any longer.

I look down at our entwined hands, the tingles still happening, and for the first time I realize that the amazing scent that wafted into the room with him wasn’t his cologne – it was all him, like an aura one can smell rather than see.

I’ve never had a boyfriend before, not even a fling or a one-night stand. I guess that was partly because I have always been too busy, too self-efficient and honestly, not even be tempted to experience sex.

For a long time, I thought that maybe I was asexual and that was why I wasn’t really interested in having relationships of any kind. But this man, with a mere look, has awakened something in me that makes me rethink that now.

I want to lean my head against those impressive pecs and cuddle into him. I want to feel his lips on mine, his skin against my skin. I want to run my hands through his hair and breathe in that unique scent and feel safe.

And even if my introduction to sex happened in the most brutal, horrendous, and nauseating of ways imaginable, I want him to replace those raw memories with something good.

I turn my hand around in his so that I could brush against his wrist with my thumb too. His pupils dilate and from the slight hitch in his breath I know that I have some effect on him too.

“Okay. I trust you.” I say.

The corner of his mouth turns up into a beautiful smile, and his eyes started twinkling. The next thing I know I’m enveloped in a hug, with him nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and my innards melt.