A Mate for Gideon(34)

“No,” he growled. “Don’t say that. You did the right thing in the end…did what you needed to do to survive, Jenna. Please listen to me. He pretty much held you prisoner. The fucker owned you and you still found a way to escape. That takes serious guts. It may have taken a while but you did it. It took courage to leave.”

“I had to stay with him for months. Share a bed with him, let them touch me…” Her voice had turned agonized and her eyes reflected the same.

Although Gideon wanted to repeatedly punch the tree and to roar with rage, he refrained from doing so. Instead, he stroked the wayward strands of hair from her face.

Jenna flinched. Her eyes widened. He could scent her fear. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart. I told you that you are safe. I would never do that to you.”

Her lip quivered. Jenna nodded. “I know.” She tried to smile. “It’s hard to forget, it’s going to take some time. It’s not you.”

Gideon pushed a breath out through his nostrils. “Like I said before, you are safe now. You’re here with me. I’ll protect you and keep you safe. There is something that I need to ask you though. It’s really important”

She nodded. Her big brown eyes firmly on him.

“I said that you’re safe and I mean it. We agreed no more lies between us.” He paused. “Are you here because you want to…” He clenched his jaw. Hearing what she had said changed things but he wasn’t ready to jump in head first into a relationship either. “Because you want to try and make it work between us, or are you here because you needed an escape from him?” It hurt to ask her. He also felt like an A-grade prick but he needed to know before anything more was said.

She sucked in a deep breath, preparing to answer him.

“Before you say anything…” Gideon could feel his heart beating in his chest, could hear the rush of his blood in his ears. “Even if you are here for escape… I completely understand. You may have come as a last resort and I’m fine with that.” It would fucking kill him. “I will make sure that you are safe, that you have the means to start up again. Somewhere far away. You can do so under a total new identity. He won’t find you and he won’t ever touch you again.” Because I’m going to fucking kill the son of a bitch. “Be honest about this. I’m a grown ass male. Please, whatever you do, don’t just tell me what I want to hear. I promise you, on my honor, that you will be taken care of no matter what you say.” He was going on and on like a pussy. It was time to shut the fuck up and let her talk.

She smiled at him and his heart clenched. Fuck. It felt good to see her happy and to know that he had been the one to put that smile on her face. It also scared the shit out of him. Then she lifted her little hand and stroked his cheek, his stubble catching. “Does this mean you want to get back together? To start off from where we left off?”

Gideon pursed his lips for a few beats. His heart raced. “It means that I don’t want you to go just yet.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Yet. That doesn’t sound promising.”

He sighed. “We can’t just pick up from where we left off. Too much has happened. We can spend some time together.” Gideon shrugged. “Let’s see where things go.”

Jenna nodded and she let out a pent up breath. “I understand. You need to know that I want to be with you too. This is where I belong…right here at your side.”

Gideon huffed out a breath as well. “Okay.” He said, unable to stop the wide grin from forming on his face. “We’ll see how it goes then? Are you sure you want to be here? You would be protected either way.”

She frowned. “I already told you what I want. I’m very sure.” Jenna smiled. “I can’t wait for us to start over. I also need to be sure that you also want to give this a shot though. You’re not doing this just because you feel sorry for me, are you?”

“Like I said, I don’t think we can just continue where we left off. You have your past to deal with. We both have trust issues, but we can work on it…together.”

She nodded. “I will admit that, although I understand why you were so hurt over finding out about Rob, it upset me that you just up and left. You broke my heart.” Her eyes filled with tears all over again and knowing that she was crying because of him this time was just too much. “You didn’t let me explain. You said you loved me yet you refused to even try and understand the situation.” She sniffed. “It was wrong of me not to have told you but it was just as wrong of you to have just left like that.”