Shades of Grey(52)

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I haven’t allowed myself to feel anything for the last six months. But when I knelt there in the dirt with Nelson’s blood on my hands, I thought to myself you should be jubilant. You should feel vindicated. Justice has been served and he’ll never hurt another woman or child again.”

Cole slid his hand gently over hers, lacing their fingers together. Just that simple gesture chased some of the lingering sickness from the pit of her stomach.

“Instead I just felt . . . sick. It all came rushing back at me, and I’ve tried so hard not to remember. I swear it was like he’d raped me all over again. Isn’t that stupid?”

She tried to laugh but it came out more as a sob.

“God, I had him at my mercy and all I could think was that it was like being raped all over again because that’s all I could remember. Him on top of me. Him overpowering me and all the hatred and revulsion I experienced.”

Cole squeezed her hand, but his hand shook against hers, giving her a hint of the emotion running through him.

“It’s not stupid, baby. Nothing you feel is stupid. It’s how you feel, so that makes it legitimate. Do you understand what I’m saying? I won’t let you beat yourself up for being human. What happened to you wasn’t just a simple injury in the course of a mission. It was something no person should ever have to endure. You can’t just shrug that off and pretend it didn’t happen. Sometime, someway, you have to deal with it, and I don’t think you have yet. I know you haven’t,” he added softly.

“I hate it,” she whispered. “Oh God, Cole, I hated feeling that helpless. Not even when all the shit went down with my S.W.A.T. team did I feel helpless. I felt angry. I was pissed. I was disappointed. But what I did was my choice. I didn’t have my choices taken away from me.”

Cole leaned forward, pressed his lips to her forehead and left them there. She leaned into him, closing her eyes as they sat in silence for a long moment. Just him being there was enough. He didn’t have to offer her platitudes.

When he pulled away, there was a hardness in his eyes that told her the gloves were about to come off. She nearly breathed a sigh of relief, because it was getting too heavy. She much preferred his anger to the overwhelming worry in his gaze.

“Why did you run, P.J.? Do you have any idea what that did to me? To us? The team? When Steele told me what you’d done, I felt like someone had sucker punched me. The other guys were just as bewildered. We aren’t your goddamn S.W.A.T. team. We aren’t dumping you when things get sticky.”

The very real anger and frustration in his voice made her feel shame. There was nowhere for her to go to hide from the look in his eyes or the way he stared so intently at her.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. And at the time it had been true. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I was sick to my soul and all I could think about was revenge. I was consumed with hatred and shame. God, do you have any idea how it feels to be totally helpless while someone holds you down and degrades you? I felt like those bastards had taken my very soul.”

Cole’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, I do know. Maybe not on the same level, but goddamn it, I know what it feels like to be helpless. I had to sit there and listen to the whole goddamn thing, P.J. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. To have to sit there while someone I care about was savaged? It makes me sick to even think about.”

She paused and looked up, her jaw going slack as she processed his words. Some of her shock must have shown on her face.

“Yeah, that’s right, P.J. I care. I care a whole hell of a lot.”

She didn’t know what to say or how to react, because they both knew he wasn’t talking about caring on a more casual level. Like the way Dolphin or Baker or Renshaw cared about her. This was something much deeper, and it scared the hell out of her.

Unable to do anything else, she gripped the hand holding hers and squeezed, hoping the gesture conveyed what she wasn’t able to put to words.

He leaned forward, tense and hesitant. His free hand went to her face, brushing aside her hair, and then he simply kissed her.

It wasn’t the burning, scorching-the-sheets kind of kiss that they’d shared that night so many months earlier. There was no impatience and no demand. It wasn’t even sexual. The touch was so exquisitely gentle that it made her want to cry.

He had a way of getting to her. Past her barriers. And there he was, at the very heart of her before she even realized he’d slipped past.

When he drew away, he rotated so that he could climb onto the bed beside her. Then he simply pulled her against his chest, holding her with both arms.