I woke up with sunlight streaming through the window and into my eyes. I was surprised to still find Adrian in my bed, his arms wrapped around the blanket that covered my naked body. I turned toward him and realized that he was still asleep. He was still in his clothes with the bedspread pulled over him, and he had his arm over me like he was protecting me, even while we slept.

I watched his face as he continued to sleep. He looked so sweet and peaceful and I couldn't understand how the man in front of me - the one I had fallen in love with on the beach so many years ago - was the same man that kept women prisoner below his house.

I didn't understand how he could do what he did to all of those girls. For years, he did to many girls what his brother did to me last night. Not caring about the screaming and crying and the pain that was being inflicted. I can't even fathom what those girls went through at his hands.

I looked at his sleeping face and wanted to feel anger but all I felt was sadness and I just couldn't hate him. I hated what he had done but I couldn't stop myself from feeling the feelings that had been inside me all these years. And while he slept it seemed like the real Adrian was right in front of me. The face that I was staring at was not that of an evil man. He looked almost as innocent as a child.

Lucas was another story, though. The thought of what he did to me made me sick and I hated him for violating me like that while I begged him to stop. But more than anything, I hated that he made me come.

I had never experienced anything like that before. I'd had orgasms while I was with different guys that I had dated and I had made myself gush by using a vibrator when I was by myself, but I had never experienced both of those things together with a man before.

I thought it was something special and personal and that when I found the right guy we would experience it together. I was so angry that Lucas had taken that experience away from me. Now I would always have the memory of that horrible time, tied to the bed with him penetrating me with his fingers against my will.

But what I also found disturbing were my thoughts about Adrian while I was with Lucas. I kept thinking to myself that if it had been Adrian doing those things to me it would have been okay. That was the only thing that helped me get through it. It scared me to think that I might love him that much, still, after everything I knew about him.

I reached up and touched Adrian's stubbly cheek and ran my fingers along his jawline. I watched his eyes flutter open and happiness spread over them, and then a smile moved across the rest of his face.

"Brooklyn," he said as he reached up and touched my cheek. We stayed like that for a while, just staring into each other's eyes and touching each other. I think that neither one of us could believe what was happening. It was like we were back on the beach.

When we were together that summer we spent a lot of time like this. Even though we had grown very close, we never kissed back then and I always wondered what it would be like to be with him.

Actually, that's not true. I always believed that everything would be perfect with Adrian. That our bodies would move together in absolute synchronicity. That every touch of his would melt me to my core until it felt like there was no separation between us at all.

I ran my fingers over the sharp edges of his perfectly defined lips, then I slowly touched them with mine. At first, I was afraid of what he was thinking of me and of my own feelings. He watched me like he couldn't believe what I was doing. But maybe he was as scared as I was about what all this would mean for the two of us.

I wondered what it was like for him to shut himself off as he was training the girls. I couldn't imagine not wanting this feeling of intimacy. I hadn't had it very much myself, especially since I was always comparing every guy that I dated with my idealized version of Adrian. And now that I had it back again I didn't want it to go away. Even though Adrian wasn't the perfect picture I had painted of him in my mind, I didn't want him to go away.

I moved my hand down Adrian's neck to the top button of his shirt. I started to unbutton it, but he put one of his hands over mine and stopped me.

"Brooklyn, are you sure you want to do this? I mean, after what happened last night I don't want to ..."

"I do want to, Adrian. I've wanted to be with you for very long time."

"Even after everything I've done? I don't deserve you, Brooklyn."

"Adrian, I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn't horrified by the things you've done. I still can't understand how you could treat anyone like your brother treated me last night. How you could keep those girls down there and use them against their will. But I can't deny how I've felt about you for years. I believe you can leave all this behind and be the person you really want to be."

"I wish I could believe it. I'm terrified that the person I am when I'm down in the caverns is the true me and that it will never change. I'm terrified that it's always going to be easier for me to just not feel anything at all and to keep doing the same destructive things. Most of the time I just don't want to feel anything, Brooklyn," he said as he stared up at the ceiling.

"Don't you want to feel me, Adrian?" I asked as I got on top of him. I still had the blanket wrapped around me and I let it fall down so that my breasts were exposed to him. Adrian swallowed hard as I bent down and kissed his neck, then continued to unbutton his shirt. With each button I opened, I kissed my way further and further down his chest until his shirt was all the way undone.

He was starting to breathe heavily and when I looked up he was watching me. He dark eyes had turned completely black as I unbuckled his belt, and I saw in them the thing that kept drawing me back to him. I felt his eyes telling me what they wanted of me without any words being spoken. I saw the depths of Adrian's lust for me in his eyes as he silently stared into mine.

But then the moment was gone and all that was left was a flash of pain across his face as he sat up. He wrapped the blanket around me and slid out from underneath me then sat on the edge of the bed as he put on his shoes.

"I can't."

"You can't what? What's the matter, Adrian?" I asked as I watched him get up off the bed.

"You'll be safe in here. I'll be back in a little while with some food." When he got to the door he turned and looked at me like he wanted to say something else but instead he just turned and left the room, then locked the door behind him.

I was stunned and heartbroken and I felt like such a fool. I had been presumptuous enough to think that I was the one that had to look past Adrian's faults, that he would be lucky if I forgave him. But as it turned out he wasn't even interested. I had been shot down and I was left even more confused and once again humiliated.

I didn't understand how I could mistake that look in his eyes, though. How could a look make every cell of my body quiver and mean nothing to him at all? I felt him inside me. I felt the old Adrian from years ago pouring through me when his eyes were locked with mine. There's no way I could have misinterpreted the way he looked at me.

Tears streamed down my face as I sat on the bed with the blanket wrapped around me. I didn't know what I wanted anymore and I didn't know what I thought I wanted to experience with him, but that image of him taking Lucas's place behind me kept flashing into my head.

And when I thought about Adrian's eyes, and Adrian telling me what he wanted me to do, it was all I wanted with every fiber of my being. But if he didn't want me then it didn't really matter what I wanted.