Bare It All

Hide emotion.

Hide fear.

Hide everything, so that she didn’t really exist. That made it easier to get through—

“No.” Reese turned her, his gaze bright with furious determination. He kissed her hard, pressing her head back. “Don’t do that, damn it. Not with me.”

She blinked in surprise, shaken and thrown off.

Appearing pained, Reese put his forehead to hers. Voice guttural, his hands tight on her shoulders, he said again, “Not with me, Alice.”

* * *

REESE FELT THE pounding of her heartbeat, but he couldn’t make himself pull back.

He wouldn’t let her hide, not anymore, not from him.

How many times had she had to do that during the year of her captivity? How many times had she faded to a quiet little mouse, hoping not to be noticed? Hoping to survive?

How many times had she been singled out, anyway?

God, it killed him to think about it, and Alice had lived it.

He kissed her again, more gently this time, moving his lips over hers, taking relief from the fact that she was here now, with him. “I need to know, Alice.”

She nodded—and surprised him by offering comfort. It was there in the way she kissed him, so tenderly, on his chin, his jaw.

She rested her head on his shoulder. “He had me taken right after work.”

The emptiness in her voice sent chills down Reese’s spine. He smoothed back her tangled hair. “Can you tell me who?”

“His name was Murray Coburn. He’s dead now.”

Sometimes it’s better when they’re  dead. Reese had to agree.

“I was locked away at night.” One breath, two. “I’m not sure where he kept most of the women—the women he sold. But I stayed in his home. Wherever he went, I went. Always.”

For a year. For an entire f**king year. Rage burned Reese’s eyes, made his muscles twitchy with the need to find and kill a man beyond his thirst for vengeance.

“At first, for the longest time, I assumed he was going to murder me,” Alice whispered. “But after a while, when that didn’t happen, I didn’t know what to think. Then he told me I needed to be his secretary. He said he had studied my background, my history of employment, and that I was just the conscientious, attentive assistant he needed for his business dealings. He said he couldn’t just hire someone because he needed someone he could trust. He said—” she swallowed hard “—he said knowing I’d die if I didn’t do a good job would be all the incentive I’d get.”

Reese found it near impossible to fathom such a thing. But he believed her. “You did what you had to do.”

“I’m sorry, Reese, but you don’t understand how it was. What I had to do...”

Reese stroked her, encouraging, wanting for her to get it out there so they could deal with it.

“I told you he was a human trafficker?”

“Yes, you told me.” And Reese feared where this would go.

“I was complicit in it all.”

“No.” Never would he believe that.

She nodded sadly. “In so many ways, I’m as guilty as he is.”

“No.” After he got all the facts, he’d find a way to convince her.

“I set up his meetings, arranged for pickups. For...sales.”

The words choked her, and when Reese brushed a thumb over her cheek, he found it damp with tears that continued to fall.

His heart felt trampled. “You were forced, Alice.”

“But I knew what he was doing. He made sure of that. Everyone knew. Everyone in the office, that is. So many immoral people, all of them as ugly and evil as him.”

“The police?”

“Couldn’t touch him,” she said simply, stating it as a fact. “He always covered his tracks, and he had corrupt friends in high places. Whenever necessary, he had an alibi. He taunted me with it. And he told me if I ever tried to leave he’d steal my little sister and sell her, too, and then he’d rape me. He said he didn’t want to.” Her hands knotted against his chest. She pressed closer, her voice raw, broken. “Even when he made me be naked around him, he said that I repulsed him, but that he’d rape me anyway if I gave him trouble.”

Dear God. Reese hauled her into his lap, trying to wrap himself around her, wanting to somehow protect her from a past already buried deep in her soul.

“I still waited and prayed, but I never had a chance to get away, not once. I couldn’t stop things, couldn’t risk my sister. If it had only been my life...”

“Your life is very important, Alice.”

She swallowed hard. “The things he threatened, what I knew he did to others, that would have been worse than death.”

Needing her to understand, he tunneled his fingers through her hair, cupped his hand around her skull, pressed a warm kiss to her forehead. “I’m very, very glad that you survived.”

Tucking her face under his chin, she said against his throat, “I feel so guilty.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” But knowing Alice, he accepted that she’d take that guilt to her grave.

“When Murray hired a new bodyguard, I knew right away that he was different.”

Ah, the wraith. Thank God. “Who was he?”

“I can’t tell you that. No, please, Reese.” She struggled back to see him, those big brown eyes liquid with tears, her nose pink. “He saved me. He saved everyone.”