“No,” I said, final.
She straightened away, pulling out of my hold. Her chin lifted defiantly. “I didn’t ask permission.”
“The last time I went to Rumor Island, someone disappeared and I spent the rest of my life feeling guilty.”
“You don’t have to come.”
I laughed. Then I laughed some more. “You can’t be serious.”
She stared at me with a straight face.
Well, wasn’t she a piece of work?
“Get one thing through that gorgeous head of yours right now,” I intoned, leaning down so we were eye to eye. “Under no circumstance would I ever, ever let the woman I love, the woman who is literally a piece of me, get in a boat and row herself over to an island where she might or might not have been held captive and abused. I would rather eat glass and shower with a rusty metal sponge. I will protect you this time. I will.”
Her eyes softened, but her nose wrinkled. “I love that you love me that much. I mean, taking a shower with a rusty sponge… that’s nasty. And oddly sweet.”
“I’m being serious,” I growled. This was a convoluted conversation.
“Your posturing is beside the point,” she announced.
Who the fuck was posturing?
“You can’t protect me, Eddie. Not from my own mind, from the memories that will continue to unlock themselves if I don’t find out what the hell happened to me.”
I felt my brow furrow. Her words were like an arrow right into the depths of my heart. “You think going there will keep the memories at bay?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Every night when I close my eyes, I worry some new horror is waiting to reveal itself to me. That day at the paintball field…” Amnesia swallowed, voice faltering.
“What?” I insisted. Panic rose up inside me.
“When I stumbled, I had a sharp, piercing memory… It was rotten.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I said, curling a hand around her elbow.
“I didn’t want to ruin our fun day.”
A frustrated sound ripped from my throat. “What was the memory, Am?”
She shook her head as if just thinking about it made her queasy.
“Amnesia.”
“When the paintball hit me, it stung… just like you said it would. But apparently, it reminded my body of something else.” She stopped speaking, glancing away. “Of being whipped.”
I groaned. I couldn’t help it. The thought of her being tortured that way made me feel tortured as well. It made my heart ache. Without saying anything, I cupped her shoulders and turned her around so she was facing out the window, her bare back to me.
In the reflection of the window, I saw her eyes squeeze shut. She knew. She knew exactly what I was doing.
I glanced down, gazing over the marks I’d seen a thousand times, but never brought up. “Now I know what these are from,” I whispered, grazing the tips of my fingers over the thin silvery scars that marred her smooth back.
“Now I do, too,” she answered self-consciously.
I knew she worried about them at first, whenever we would undress in front of each other or I would strip her shirt off her body to make love. The scars went unspoken between us. No one ever called attention to them.
A little shiver worked down her back. “I always worried you would think of me as freakish or less beautiful. But time and again, we made love. You washed my back in the shower and rubbed over them at night. But you never brought them up.”
She lifted her head, caught my reflection in the window, and met my stare.
“Until now.”
“I don’t see them when I look at you, Amnesia. Obviously, I know they’re there. My fingers have felt them, and so have my lips. But they aren’t you. I don’t see these scars when you’re naked before me. All I see is the woman I love, and to me, you’re perfect.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Your words are beautiful. It makes me almost sad I told you what the scars are from. I feel like they dirty me.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry.” I traced over one that slashed across her back. “So fucking sorry you had to endure something so vile.”
“I don’t remember, not much. Only that brief moment at the field. It was enough. I want to keep it that way. I don’t want to know, Eddie. It scares me… so much.”
“I know.” I sympathized, folding my arms around her. “It scares me, too, baby.”
“Maybe if I get some answers to my most nagging thoughts, the subconscious way I push my brain to remember will ease off. Maybe I’ll be able to accept not knowing everything if I know something. I feel knowing protects me from feeling. Can you understand that, even a little?”
I didn’t think I’d ever understand the full extent of what it was like to be inside her mind. When I tried to think about it, red tinged my vision, and I seriously understood crime of passion. I had to push past that, though. I had to be stronger than even her greatest demon. My hands slid down over her shoulders, across her waist, and dragged up her back. Without thinking about it, my fingers softly probed the lifted scars there, tracing them as I tried to weigh what I wanted to do against what she needed me to do.
I waited until I truly meant the words, then spoke. “If this is what you need, then it’s what we’ll do.”
I saw hope surge in her eyes, which in turn lifted it out of the heaviest of emotion whirling inside me. “Really?” she asked, slight awe in her voice.
“I won’t ever deny you anything,” I vowed.
“Other than a trip to Rumor island alone.” She teased.
I glared. Now was not the time to jest. I was trying to be strong and romantic and shit. Besides, charm was my thing… not hers.
“Too soon?” she asked, a sparkle in her eyes.
Well, shit. Maybe charm was her thing, too.
I wanted to smile, but then I remembered what we were discussing. “If I’d known that paintball hit made you remember being whipped…” I felt my teeth bare. “That asshole wouldn’t have been able to walk out of there.”
“Another reason I didn’t say anything,” she quipped.
My eyes settled on her face. I needed her to understand. “I’m very serious when it comes to protecting you. Shielding you from any more pain.”
“I noticed.”
“I couldn’t stop what happened all those years ago, and I… I didn’t find you.” I swallowed. Knowing Am might have been so close ripped me apart. I hadn’t done anything. “But I swear to heaven and to hell, if anyone wants to hurt you now, they will go through me.”
“You’re pretty sexy when you’re all growly and intense.” Her arms wound around my torso.
I raised an eyebrow. “Growly?”
“It’s a thing.”
“A thing you just made up,” I deadpanned.
“But I like it. It turns me on.”
Well then. “I’ll allow it.”
“You really never see my scars when you look at me?”
Something inside me softened. “No, baby, I really don’t. And they don’t make you dirty. They make you more beautiful.”
Suddenly, fear crept into her tone. “I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you.”
“Hey,” I purred. “You will never have to find out.”
She launched across the short distance between us, wrapping her body around mine. Want hammered inside me; the skin-on-skin contact we had was making me crave her.
Just as I thought about twirling around and tossing her down on the bed, she glanced up, eyes wide, full of energy. “Let’s go.”
“Go?”
“To Rumor Island.”
“Hell no!” I said, incredulous.
“But you said…”
“I said I understood. I did not agree to taking you across the lake in the middle of the night to an island I am unfamiliar with. Woman, you are out of your ever-loving mind.”
“We can’t call the police. Search parties take too long to organize. They’re loud. They’ll scare him away.”
If he’s even there. This is such a long shot. But even I couldn’t help realizing she had a point. That light was some kind of sign. Of what, I wasn’t sure.
“We’ll go when it’s light out.” I compromised. “At least then we can see what we’re dealing with.”
She thought it over a moment. Briefly, I worried she was going to argue. I didn’t want to quarrel with her. I wanted to bury myself inside her.
“We’ll go tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll call Dad and have him handle the store.”
“What will you tell him?” She worried.
The truth. Well, a partial truth. “That I need a day with my girl.”
An invisible weight lifted off her. I felt it leave the room.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely.
“That island may not have the answers you’re looking for.” I felt the need to caution her again.
“It may,” she rebutted.
She was right. The more and more I thought about it, I realized Rumor Island might hold a hell of a lot more than just rumors.