Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
She had thought if everything had started with a penis, maybe it could end there, too. But maybe it had never been about that at all. The attacks could happen in a grocery store as easily as in the bedroom, so it wasn’t entirely about sex—it was the helplessness that terrified her more than anything. She couldn’t unknow how easily someone could take all her power away from her. There was only one way to fight that, and it was the exact opposite of the way she’d been living for the last five years.
Until she was staring down that website with tears in her eyes, she hadn’t realized how many ways she’d been punishing herself for the attack, even though she’d never consciously believed it was her fault. She’d been existing in a kind of withdrawn penance for long enough. She wanted a life, and now she knew for sure that she wanted LJ to be a part of it. With his gentle hands and sunny smile, and the sparkle he woke up in the center of her chest.
The next step in taking charge of her life, and in truly caring for herself, was to go after him.
She turned on the lights and started moving through her house, gathering her belongings. She was in a hurry, but she didn’t rush. Instead, she took the time to reconnect with her body after all the years it had felt like an alien thing. Appreciating how easily her arms lifted weight and how smoothly her legs carried her anywhere she wanted to go. She was still whole, though she hadn’t felt it in a long time.
When she passed her laptop, she picked it up and bookmarked the website so she could check out the sex toys another time. When she opened it again, she’d be looking to see what she might enjoy, rather than trying to trigger fear until she was numb to it.
It took her until nearly four in the morning to pack everything she might need, since she didn’t know how long she’d be gone. She carried her two suitcases to the door, flicking off lights with her elbow as she went. The last one was the kitchen, and she stared into the cheery white space with its river-rock-pebbled backsplash and open, honest shelves. It wasn’t the house that was wrong. It was the way she’d been living in it. When she got back, she’d do better.
Andra left her suitcases on the porch and walked to the paddock. She ducked, her loose hair catching on the rough wooden rails of the fence as she climbed between the two lowest ones.