“Just . . . not you.”
“Those scars,” he said after a few moments of silence. “Where did you get them?” When I didn’t respond, he spoke again . . . his voice strained. “I’d seen your arms, but I . . . I thought it was something different.”
“You thought I’d done this to myself,” I guessed, and took his silence as acknowledgment.
“Who did that to you?”
I sat there for a long time without answering his question. Taylor didn’t have a right to know about my life, and yet, some part of me wanted to tell him. “A man that I’d grown up with and had trusted. Something changed in him though, he became obsessed . . . he was evil. And, to put it simply, he wasn’t accepting of the fact that I refused to be his.”
“Is he who you dream about?” he asked. The darkness in his tone caused me to shrink away from him.
“Nightmares,” I corrected him. “I have nightmares about him. I dream about Kash and my life before you entered it.”
It felt like all the air was sucked from the room at my attempt to hurt Taylor. It was ridiculous, but an apology was at the tip of my tongue. I hated that I felt bad for hurting him . . . but I knew my earlier assessment was correct. Taylor may have done bad things, but he was not a bad person.
With a heavy sigh, Taylor moved back across the room. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I, but I felt his eyes on me until I eventually fell asleep.
“WHAT COLOR DO YOU THINK I SHOULD USE?”
One of Taylor’s eyebrows shot straight up, and with his dark eyes, strong features, and large arms crossed over his chest, I suddenly felt stupid for asking him. But I was bored, I needed someone to talk to, and he was the only candidate. Candice would’ve helped me pick out a color, so this beast was about to help me pick out one now.
“Well?” I prompted and gestured toward the six nail polishes sitting on the bed.
“You’re serious?” Despite his deadpan expression and tone, I didn’t give up.
“Uh, yeah.” It’d been over a week since the night Taylor had woken me up from my Blake nightmare, and in that time, something had changed between us. I don’t know if it was telling him the smallest bit about Blake, or if it had to do with Taylor mentioning his personal demons. Whatever the reason, we talked more every day. While it made the days go by faster, I was also struggling to remember why I’d ever been afraid of him. That alone should worry me and shoot up red flags; but I could see the torture he struggled with internally, and I knew this whole situation was the last thing he wanted for either of us.
He huffed and uncrossed his legs before switching which one was on top. “Isn’t it enough that I buy you those, and braved buying you tampons last week?”
My cheeks flooded with heat, but I squared my shoulders and stared him down. “Well if I was home, you wouldn’t have had to worry about that! It’s not my fault you weren’t prepared for having a woman locked up for this long.”
His face dropped and turned an odd shade of white for his normally tan skin. “I’m sorry—”
“I know you are, and I know you don’t even have to do what you’ve been doing. So thank you, but could you just humor me, and help me pick out a color? Please?”
“Sure,” he said softly, and didn’t bother standing as he crawled over to the mattress. His brow drew together as he studied the different colors, and picked them up individually, before picking up two at a time and setting one aside.
I laughed softly and raised my hands in surrender when he glared at me.
“This one.” He dropped the electric blue polish in my lap and sat back but stayed close to the mattress. “You’re trying to turn me into a girl,” he grumbled and ran his hands through his shaggy hair.
“Um, not? You just have to put up with me because you signed up for the job of taking care of me. Lucky you.”
He grunted and watched as I started with my toes first, and then made my way to my fingernails.
“You having fun watching me?”
“I wouldn’t say fun is the right word, but it’s something to do. And your concentration face is cute.”
Rolling my eyes, I let the cute slide, even though I would have normally punched Mason’s or Kash’s arm if they had called anything I did cute. Not now, though. I’d take the cute title and wear it proudly if it meant being near them.
Funny how things like that change when you’re in these kinds of situations. Kash usually drove me crazy. He was so stubborn, and such a smart-ass, but I missed those annoying traits so much. I missed the way our personalities clashed and resulted in us fighting; I would give anything to fight with Kash again. The thought of having children with him used to terrify me, and now I was afraid I’d never get to have that opportunity. And I hated the nickname Sour Patch so damn much, but I would never complain about it again if it meant hearing Kash’s voice.
Tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked quickly to keep them back. Taking a deep breath in to tamper down the emotions bubbling up, I concentrated on finishing the last nail and screwed the top on before looking up at Taylor. “Do you know my name?”
“I do.”
“Why don’t you ever use it?”
He bit down on the inside of his cheek and looked away from me as he thought about what to say. “I stole you away, I didn’t meet you. When you meet someone, if they want you to know their name, they give it to you. It’s like a privilege, and you didn’t give me that privilege.”