Lust Is the Thorn Read Free Page B

and I would rock at it, too. I’d be the best dancer on that stage.
    Gallaghers don’t do things half-assed.
    We go all in.
    Taking my clothes off and shaking what the good Lord gave me didn’t change me, or the fact that I had goals. Dreams. Ambitions. My job at Kitty Kat’s was just a temporary setback. I would still get where I wanted to be. I was still
me
.
    If he couldn’t accept that, that was on
him
.
    He finally broke off our little Mexican standoff, dragging his hands down his face. “I’m sorry. I just—I wish you had come to me. I would have figured out something till you got a job. A real job.”
    I stiffened. He was right. My job hadn’t been a good one. But that didn’t give him the right to judge me. No one had that right, and
he
of all people should know that. “I had a
real
job. It might not be as glamorous as putting on a white collar and telling everyone how to properly live their lives, but it was something.”
    He scowled at me. “You know what I mean.”
    I did, just like I knew he wasn’t looking down on me, but was upset that I’d done something Mikey never would have allowed. But that didn’t change the fact that I stripped, and I didn’t give a damn what he thought of it. What I did with my life, my body, was none of his business…no matter how much I secretly wished it was.
    And that was that.
    “What do you want me to do?” I asked stubbornly. The morphine was starting to mess with my head, so I focused on his bright amber eyes to block out the spinning room. In this lighting, his naturally tan complexion looked deeper. Darker. “Repent my sins? Come to your church for confession on Sunday? Because I don’t—”
    “What happened tonight?” he asked again. “Tell me.”
    The last thing I wanted to do was relive the attack again. I already did it at least ten times, and I reassured at least five kind women that I’d stopped the attack before he could actually rape me. The female cop they’d sent in right before Thorn arrived had made me repeat my story three times to make sure I hadn’t forgotten any important details. No matter how kind she’d been, nothing detracted from the fact that for the second time that night, I’d felt violated. The man in the alley had scared me in ways I hadn’t been scared since before I left home. But Thorn didn’t need to know all that.
    That was on me.
    “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. There was a guy in the club who was watching me too closely with his hand down his pants, freaking me out. I told security, and they booted him. I thought that would be the end of it. But he jumped me outside my work and beat me up.” I gestured down my body. His gaze dipped down, and I
felt
it. Felt
him
. “Gave me this sprained wrist that hurts every time I move it, so I’m trying not to do that at all. Beat-up face. Sore throat from when he tried to strangle me. Bruised self-esteem, since I should have been able to take that fucker down without Gary’s help. He was a little guy, smaller than Mikey was in tenth grade, and—”
    “Rose.”
He squared his jaw. “Was he…did he…touch…?”
    He couldn’t even say it. Couldn’t complete the thought. And he expected me to be
honest
with him about the rest of my life? About what I’d seen and done? He couldn’t handle it. Not anymore. What had that seminary done to the guy who used to have sex with two girls at once on my back lawn—in the
daylight
? “Did he rape me? Is that what you’re trying to ask me?”
    “Yes.” His hands curled into balls. “Did he rape you?”
    “Nah. He tried, but I stopped him.”
    “You can tell me the truth.” He came over to the side of the bed, probing for answers he didn’t really want. “I can help you.”
    I gripped my left arm, right above my splint, and held on tight. I trembled, not because the man had raped me—he hadn’t—but because for a second…I’d thought he would. That I wouldn’t succeed in fighting him off. And that had