Virgin pussy? My baby? Fucking hell.

Austyn gave her virginity to a man like JK? That doesn’t make sense. Even if she didn’t know who he was, she’s not that kind of woman. She has to care about someone to get to that level. It took her how long to finally let me in, and I’m supposed to believe she gave herself to JK?

Austyn lies curled up in a ball on the bed in my room at the clubhouse. I haven’t been here in a long-ass time and the room smells like it, but Austyn says nothing.

Emery is patched up and physically fine. Emotionally is another story, but Angel and GT are taking care of her. Austyn wouldn’t leave Emery’s side until GT finally told her that she needed to go lie down and he had Emery.

As I sit on the bed next to her, her body jolts. Reaching out, I caress her hip as she begins to cry. With her knees against her chest, I form myself to her body as she starts to shake.

We don’t talk. We simply lie there while she cries.

It takes hours before she calms enough for me to speak, and I hate to even ask this, but I need to know more about what he said.

“It was his baby?”

When she begins to sob again, I hold her tighter.

“Yeah …”

“Why? Why would you have sex with a man like that?”

Her body stops shaking and begins to vibrate. “You think I let him? No, I didn’t let him, Ryker.”

Anger heats me from the inside out, boiling like hot lava out of a volcano. She didn’t let him. Let him. He took it.

“Please tell me what happened.” My voice is so low. I don’t trust myself not to scare the shit out of her with the fury I feel.

“I don’t want to.” She shakes her head into the pillow.

“It’s already out now, Austyn. Release yourself from all of it.”

She cries more, and I hate it, but I need to know what happened. If she didn’t give herself freely, that’s the underlying reason she pulled away from me. Why she thinks she dirty. Why she’s been through hell longer than anyone, including myself, realized. It makes sense now, and I fucking hate it. She needs to say the words, get it out there and in the open.

Her entire body shudders, almost as if she’s having a seizure, as prickles form on her skin. I wrap her tighter in my warmth and wait.

“You don’t want to hear this,” she says softly between her broken cries. “You don’t want this vision in your head, Ryker. It’ll change everything.”

Kissing the top of her head, I promise her, “Nothing changes. Not one damn thing between you and I. Swear it.”

Austyn takes her time, probably sorting out in her head how she wants to tell me this, knowing it’s under protest, just like the last time. But JK already spilled it. She needs to wash herself clean of it once and for all.

“I met Jill in Spear at Club Cam’s. She’s an old friend, or I thought she was, from school. She wanted to go out and let loose. I was fine with that. I didn’t have much to do and Emery was away at school. So, I went. We drank and danced. She ended up going home with a guy, totally ditching me. I went out front and called a cab to come get me.”

She begins to shake, and I give her a reassuring squeeze. Then she blows out a deep breath.

“While I was waiting, JK approached me, asking me for a cigarette. We ended up striking a conversation. This is where it gets a little hazy.

“I was poked with something sharp, and my entire body felt … different. So different. He led me to a car, but I can’t remember if I protested. Then he took off and I closed my eyes because I felt nauseous. When I came to, I was strapped to a bed.”

My body begins to tremble. Locking it down proves difficult. Heat fills me like a fire with too much gasoline on it, expanding out of control. It’s like one of those wildfires that’s so intense it’s hard to control. For Austyn’s sake, though I do, at least on the outside.

“They hit me, hurt me. JK was first …” She hiccups as I try to absorb her pain. “They took turns with me.” Austyn burrows her face into the pillow, trying to pull away from me, but I don’t let her get far.

“Austyn, none of that shit was your fault.”

“I know.” Her voice breaks. “But it makes me dirty.”

Turning her in my arms, I find her entire face is red with splotches, wetness coats her cheeks, and her eyes are puffy red. Pain is everywhere. In her eyes, posture, and her soul.

“You are not dirty. Not one fuckin’ thing about you is dirty.”

“I can’t get clean,” she whispers, her eyes calling to me, tugging at my heart.

Rubbing her arm up and down, I tell her, “You are clean. What they did to you is on them. It makes them dirty, sick fuckers. It makes them unworthy to breathe air. You, you’re not any of that. It wasn’t your choice. They did those things to you without your consent. Nothing about this is dirty for you.”

Everything inside me aches for Austyn. It’s as if, with each word, she’s yanking out pieces of her heart and soul and throwing them on the ground. Then I come along and pick them up, putting them back where they need to go.

She’s broken and cracked from what those men did to her. It makes me want to kill the fucker myself and add in some serious pain. She did that, though. She took care of the problem, making it so he’s no longer a threat.

“I want to believe that, Ryker. It’s why I didn’t want to tell you.” She shakes her head as more tears stream down her face and onto the pillow below.

I cup the side of her face, brushing some hair away from her eyes. “I understand, but babe, I’m all in with you. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Whatever life slams us in the face with, I’m by your side. But I fuckin’ swear to you, nothing like this will ever happen to you again. I’ll protect you until my dyin’ breath.”

She grips me hard, pressing her face into my chest as her body racks with sobs once again.

“How’d you get away?” I ask softly, wanting the rest of the story, but not wanting to upset her even more.

“That’s the thing; after he looked in my wallet and got my name, he threatened me, saying he would come back and do it again if I opened my mouth. Then he said something about the younger girls in Ravage, which I would never let happen. Then he just pushed me into a car, and the next thing I remember, I was in my car, sitting in the parking lot at the bar.”

That fucking dickhead did so much more damage than any of us thought. He tore this woman to shreds, but he will not win. The Austyn I’ve been with the past few weeks is the woman she’s meant to be—happy, loved, and laughing.

That’s where we’ll get back to. I fuckin’ swear it.