The truth is, I don’t think I want to know… but I assume she wants to tell me. “What was it?”

Cora tickles my arm as her fingers glide back down, inciting goosebumps to sprout all over my skin. “It was the night after we… well, the first time you had to…” She swallows. “You didn’t talk to me. You didn’t sing. And it was so dark.”

God, she’s going to rip my heart out. I close my eyes and squeeze her closer to me, my fingertips unconsciously dipping beneath the hem of her tank top. She lets out a squeaky sound when I trail them along the skin just below her belly button. “That was the worst day, and night, of my whole fucking life, Corabelle. I didn’t know what to say to you.” I inhale her freshly washed hair, burying my face into the crook of her neck. “What could I say?”

“I wasn’t mad,” she responds in a breathy tone, pressing herself even closer to me. “I understood.”

“No.” I shake my head, her golden locks tickling my nose. “You couldn’t possibly understand. I spent the whole night wishing I’d let him kill me.”

Cora jerks her head to her left, pinning her eyes on me. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“No… Dean, don’t ever say that again. Don’t even think it.” She twists around until we’re facing each other, and my hand slides up behind her top, caressing the small of her back. Cora maintains my gaze for a long time before dipping her chin and sucking in a choppy breath. “Remember when we were trading confessions?” she asks, still avoiding my gaze.

I nod, and our noses almost kiss. “I remember.”

Her tongue slicks over her lips and her eyes close as she pieces together her words. “You told me two confessions and I only told you one.”

My hand instinctively rises up her back, massaging her spine, then curves around to her front. I splay my fingers along her stomach, feeling her body melt into me, and my breathing picks up to match my racing heart. “Do you have another confession?”

Cora nods timidly, her lips parting as she arches into my roving hand. I slide it up her middle until my fingers graze the underside of her breast.

Fuck, I’m getting hard. I should probably stop touching her.

But I want to keep touching her. The last time we were trapped in the dark, we couldn’t even touch our toes together.

“Tell me,” I whisper, lowering my hand and curling it around her waist. I leave it there, waiting for her to speak.

Cora’s eyes flutter open, and it almost feels like it takes all of her courage to let them meet mine. She inhales sharply, then lets it out, her breath skimming my lips. “The only time I felt safe was when you were inside of me.”

Her words shoot straight to my groin. My cock twitches in my jeans, remembering exactly how it felt being inside of her. Only… I thought she was repulsed. Outraged. Horrified.