Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Why the fuck are you crying? I’m finally fucking you like you always wanted.
But I couldn’t stop crying and started sobbing, actually, because the whole thing was nothing like how I’d envisioned losing my virginity those few times I’d furtively touched myself in the dark. Why the fuck are you crying? It was the last time I cried, too, for five years, till at the club with Isaak.
Then, when Drew went to shove forward again, he didn’t feel hard between my thighs anymore.
He got really mad then and started yelling at me about how I’d killed his hard-on.
“But I guess he wasn’t used to using condoms, so between that and the beer or whatever, he couldn’t keep it up.”
“So the fucker was drinking?” Isaak asks heatedly before swearing. “Shit. Don’t answer that. Did you catch a ride home after that?”
Suddenly, the tears I’ve been managing to choke back aren’t staying put anymore, and I let out a loud sob.
Seeing a highway exit, I take it, even though it means recklessly pulling in front of another car.
“Jesus fuck!” Isaak shouts, grabbing onto the car door.
But I don’t care about anything. I can barely see the windshield because of the tears suddenly flooding my eyes. As soon as I leave the exit ramp, my foot hits the brakes. It’s a nowhere exit. No lights or gas stations. I pull off to the side as soon as I see that there’s a wide-enough space for my Mini, bringing the car to a stop as I finally let the sobs free.
“Kira. Kira!”
I hear Isaak calling my name, but I’ve got my head buried in my arms across the steering wheel.
Because, oh god. Oh god.
No.
No, I didn’t get an Uber home after that.
FORTY-TWO
ISAAK
I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Kira barely makes it off the highway before pulling the car off the road and under a stubby tree before jamming it in park and absolutely losing her shit.
I yank the parking break to make sure we’re parked, then unhook Kira’s seatbelt. As gently as I can, I lift her out of the driver’s side seat and into my arms.
“Is this okay?” I ask. I’m pretty sure of her answer even before she nods against my neck because as soon as I’ve gotten her into my lap, she completely collapses on me and wraps her arms and legs as tightly around me as much as she can in the front seat. Like she’s a koala bear and I’m a tree.
I stroke my fingers through her hair. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper into her hair, tucking her as tightly against my chest as I can.
“Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay now. I’m so, so sorry.” I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for. For bringing any of this up. For whatever happened to her that night. For my murderous thoughts toward Drew, because seriously, the next time I see that guy, all I’m gonna want to do is stab my sharpest knife through his ball sack and twist until he bleeds out.
She pulls back, both her eyes and nose running, and both red. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. He just ended up shoving his fingers inside me. It’s not even a big deal.”
Every cell in my body goes ice cold. “He did what?”
“When he wasn’t hard enough to go in, he put a few fingers inside me instead.”
A few? She hasn’t said so, but I’m assuming she was a virgin.
“Did you want him to?”
“We were past that part, I’d thought.”
“What part?”
“The putting it in stage.” Another hard sob. “I can’t remember if I told him I wanted to stop. I just thought it was obvious because I was crying so hard.”
She was crying, and that fucker still—
“But he didn’t stop?” I ask through clenched teeth.
She shakes her head. “He just sort of fell back on top of me and shoved his fingers in.”
“And you didn’t want that?”
“I can’t remember if I said no or not.”
She sobs again, and I bring her closer, holding her as fiercely as I can. I’m trying to also hold her in a way that she feels like she can escape easily if she needs to.
Jesus, all I want to do is hold her. I’ve seen this shit happen to far too many foster sisters throughout the years. Then sisters in the military. I protected who I could, where I could. Some guys seemed to think because they were bigger, it gave them the right to take whatever they wanted from anyone smaller. I always figured because I was bigger still, it meant I was supposed to even the odds if I could.
But you can never protect everyone all the time. The evil in this fucking world was always ready to crush your soul around the next corner.
“None of that was your fault and it doesn’t matter if you said no out loud or not,” I whisper. “You were crying. It was a violation. That wasn’t consensual sex. Consent has to be enthusiastic, and you were fucking crying.”