Thump. Thump. Thump. The heavy oak headboard steadily bangs against the wall just behind it. I study the shadows from the streetlights below swaying on the vaulted ceiling of our bedroom. I imagine them as kindred spirits waiting for me . . . waiting for him to finish.

My arms lay loose around his shoulders. His sweaty back slides under my forearms faster now. He’s close. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter with every hard thrust, every disgusting grunt. Tears trickle down my cheeks as my head inches up the pillow, until it too knocks against the headboard.

Rick doesn’t notice.

His face, while buried against my neck, doesn’t mask the stench of beer slithering into my nostrils. I roll my head to the side, leaving my shadowy friends without an audience. When the muscles in his thighs tighten against mine, I pull him closer and lock my ankles around his waist, hoping it gets him there quicker. With a final thrust, he rolls off of me without a word.

I can breathe again.

He kisses my cheek and scoots to his side of the bed. I lay staring at the wall at the painting of Shakespeare’s Ophelia floating dead in a stream. She looks peaceful—so peaceful.

I turn my head to Rick, making sure he’s asleep so I can make my usual escape to the balcony, but I gasp. The face staring back at me isn’t my husband.

It isn’t Rick—it’s Jaxxon.

I awoke with a start and looked around my office. I’d nodded off on the couch again. This was a recurring dream, which had been my reality for a decade. The new twist—Jaxxon. It was as if even my psyche felt compelled to warn me not to get too attached to this man, who was never far from my thoughts these days. Thirty-four or not, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

How many times had I lain next to Rick, asking, Is this my life? Is this all there is to sex? Rick had tried foreplay, but after that time he’d walked in on me during a shower and seen all the scars in broad daylight, all foreplay had stopped. If I closed my eyes I could still see his wide, bulging eyes, mouth agape, and the remnants of his breakfast sinking into our shaggy cream-colored carpet . . .

He had liked that he’d been my first. Before we’d had sex, I told him about the scars, so lights off were fine with him. I’d always been diligent about hiding my scars. Rick knew I’d been in an accident when I was younger—at least, that was what I’d told him—and he’d never questioned it or pressed me about sex. He’d felt them, of course, but as little as possible, and after seeing them, he’d avoided them as if they were a disease. It’s hard to be intimate with a person when you know they find you repulsive.

I should have left sooner, but I’d promised for better or worse. Apparently, he couldn’t handle the “worse” part. For that, I didn’t blame him. For lying and for the emotional abuse, I did. I would have respected honesty.

In most situations, we’re attracted to people physically at first, and then we get to know them. No amount of plastic or cosmetic surgery would ever erase my past. It was engraved into my skin, like a badge of shame. The scarring was ghastly, even now, almost two and a half decades later. A doctor had once suggested plastic surgery, although he admitted it would be a complicated procedure requiring multiple surgeries. But even if I could have found a plastic surgeon willing to do the complex job of patching my skin back together, there was no way I could stomach the idea of letting myself lie unconscious on a table while a man cut into me with a knife again, especially given the area where the damage was the most severe. In which case, I’d accepted there’s only so much fading that can happen with stab wounds that deep and gashes that long. It wasn’t about vanity for me. My scars were a part of me and I’d acknowledged that a long time ago. I may think they’re disgusting, but I could live with them—Rick couldn’t.

If I couldn’t keep Rick happy, the chances of keeping a man like Jaxxon satisfied? Slim to none—hence the dream.

Subconscious warning acknowledged.

The loneliness, the emptiness in my chest, in the deepest parts of me, at times made it hard to breathe, which was why I stayed so busy with work, training, and instructing my students. At times, it consumed me, as if I were drowning in an ocean of . . . want. The need to be loved, desired, was palpable. Maybe that was why I was so good at my job and took on as many clients as I did. I experienced aspects of love in a way I never would in real life. Fiction was beautiful that way, offering an escape, an alternate universe for those of us who lived outside the margins of the aesthetically perfect.

As scared as I was about starting another relationship, about the imminent sexual rejection once anything got serious, I still hoped to experience it at least once. What would it feel like to be genuinely loved, cherished, and accepted for exactly who I am—to be wanted as a woman, despite my scars? No inhibitions. No barriers.

Enough!

Unraveling myself from the blankets and pillows on my couch, I stalked to my bedroom to take a shower and wake up. So I went to my sanctuary.

My bathroom was stunning. I’d renovated it as soon as I’d moved in. A huge Jacuzzi tub lay just beneath a set of four long, high, rectangular windows. I had a large brushed-glass shower with a bench and a lot of room to move. I liked space. The bathroom was my favorite place in the house.

Cranking the nozzle, I shut the glass door to let the water warm up. I looked at my reflection in the mirror above my counter. Dark half-moons stained the skin under my eyes. I studied the face staring back at me. I was whiter than usual. All color had left my cheeks days ago. I needed to sleep at some point. But I knew what waited for me once I closed my eyes.

I shut the bathroom door with my foot and slowly twisted around to the full-length mirror on the backside. As a rule, I never looked in that mirror when I undressed. Never. But tonight was a strange night. I pulled my shirt over my head, letting it drop to the tiled floor. Unhooking my bra, I let the straps fall down my arms. My pajama pants hung low on my hips, the top of the jagged scars jutting out of the elastic waistband. “Jesus.” My voice came out muffled in the large bathroom as steam descended from over the top of the shower.

I ran my fingers over the bumpy patterns on my skin above my pajamas. Puckered and angry, flat and faded, jagged and long. My image began to fade as condensation built on the mirror. I slid my pants and underwear down my legs and closed my eyes as I straightened.

Look at it. Face it. See it.

One at a time, I forced my eyelids open. My lower abdomen was a scene from a horror film, except I’d lived. Long, crisscrossed lines slashed across my pelvic area. Two or three ran along my hip, and the deepest of them all crossed from the top of my right thigh to the inside, stopping just before my knee.

“How did you survive at all?” I whispered and for once, I couldn’t stop staring at them.

Three of the inch-and-a-half-wide lines above my pelvic bone were the ones that still looked fresh, even after all these years. Straight and deep puncture wounds. They’d healed in such a way that there appeared to be a seam holding them together. I gently slid my fingers over the three marks that had ensured I’d never produce a life beyond my own.

I loved children. Always had. I had wanted to be a mother ever since I could remember. But for the past twenty-five years, I’d known motherhood was never going to happen for me unless I adopted. I wasn’t against adoption. There were too many children in the world who needed a good home, someone to love them and maybe someday, I’d consider it.

My pubic area was lasered. According to my doctors, the wounds were so varied and deep in that area that the hair would never grow in correctly. Wanting me to have some semblance of a regular sex life, my doctor suggested waxing, which if the pattern was kept tight, provided a decent illusion. When I met Rick, I took their advice. It helped make me look at least a little normal, as long as the abdominal scars stayed covered.

Lifting my arms away from my body, I stared at my forearms. My mom had lost her mind when I got my tattoo, but I had needed something—something beautiful on my body to hide some of the ugliness. Something to remind me I was lucky. A visual reminder that I used to be an Olympic-caliber athlete with an unyielding work ethic, and that I had survived.

I looked at the black script against my pale skin.

Die and rise. I should have died, but I didn’t. I fought my way back to life. And for the ones who didn’t make it, I owed it to them to fight and not take my second chance for granted.

Spinning away from the mirror, I showered and scrubbed at my disfigured mementos. By the time I got out, I was cherry-red all over.

I was not in the right mindset to work tonight. My clients deserved me at my best. When I put my watch back on, it was later than I thought. 2:45 a.m. After that dream, I wasn’t going back to sleep. I needed comfort and only one place could provide it. Sunday mornings at the gym were quiet, peaceful.

Jaxxon never came on weekends—a welcome relief. I didn’t think I could take an encounter with him and come out in decent shape.

I sighed, lifting my gym bag over my head. Chris and Kyle escorted me to the door, where I gave them each a treat and a kiss on the head. “Don’t wait up, boys.”