“Outside.” I shrugged on a T-shirt, then escaped the room and the desolation seeping from her gaze. Her soft cries followed me down the ladder, but I was in no shape to comfort her, especially since I was no better than her brother, no better than the men who’d raped me in prison. If only I’d stopped long enough to think of all the angles, past my fury, maybe I would have considered she was a victim in this.

I’d kidnapped a girl who at age fifteen had been helpless in a situation forced upon her. I’d punished her without knowing the whole fucking picture. It wasn’t even the sex that bothered me, as she’d wanted it. It was everything else—like being a cold and heartless ass who’d used her fear against her, debased her, and made her feel like she meant nothing to me.

I stormed outside but didn’t go far, as if an invisible line anchored me to the house, to her. I clenched my jaw with the need to find Zach and dismember his dick from his body, but I couldn’t leave her alone, and it dawned on me that I couldn’t confront him either. He thought she was dead.

Fuck.

The whole world thought she was dead. I balled my fists. I’d taken her, and it was too late to go back. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted her, all of her—her pain and sorrow, her joy and triumphs, her orgasms and her agony when I held them at bay. But letting her go would be the right thing to do.

I glanced toward the cabin and stilled. She stood in the doorway, eyes red-rimmed and haunted, her body wrapped in my sheet. She’d just admitted to being raped by her own brother, yet I wanted to tear that sheet from her and throw her to the ground. The memory of her mouth around my dick in the bathtub hit me, as did the fact I hadn’t reached orgasm. I was royally fucked up.

I crossed the distance, climbed the steps to the porch, and shoved past her. Her footsteps pattered on my heels as I entered the living room. She walked timidly, as if scared to make a sound. Slumping to the couch, I held my head in my good hand while my injured one dangled between my knees. She sank to the floor and took my bad hand in hers. It didn’t seem to matter what I’d done to her, or what I would do to her—I was starting to believe she was incapable of flushing me from her system.

She unwound the gauze and brushed her fingers over my swollen knuckles. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s not bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

I angled my head and looked at her. “You didn’t force my fist into the wall.”