Forbidden Read online

  Have to get it off me. Once I do, I’ll feel better. Be able to forget. She hoped, anyway.

  They drove in silence and didn’t talk even when they reached Owen’s loft. Leah had the feeling he wanted to say something, but she didn’t give him a chance. The moment he put the key in the lock and turned it, she was past him and through the door, heading for the bathroom.

  “Leah—” he began, but she ignored him.

  A shower. I need a long, hot shower. When I’m clean, everything will be okay again. It will be like it never happened.

  But she couldn’t get clean.

  Oh, the stuff melted away under the scalding water, though at first she’d been afraid it wouldn’t. But aside from its strange color and horrible smell—which she seemed to pick up more with her mind than her nose—it acted like ordinary semen. But no matter how many times she washed her hair and scrubbed her body, Leah could still feel it on her. On her face…her breasts…her thighs. Burning her. Branding her. Marking her as disgusting and ruined. Unclean. Defiled.

  She didn’t know how long she had stayed in the shower. Didn’t know how long she’d spent frantically scrubbing until her skin was raw. Didn’t know and didn’t care. She would stop when she was clean. She didn’t even care when the water turned lukewarm and then freezing cold. Still she scrubbed because she wasn’t clean yet. Would never be clean.

  “Leah?”

  Looking up from her scrubbing, she caught a glimpse of Owen’s worried face through the clear glass door of the shower stall.

  “I’m fine,” she said mechanically, attacking her breasts again with the harsh exfoliating hand mitt she’d found in the corner of the shower stall. “Fine, Owen. Leave me alone.”

  “You’ve been in there for two hours,” he said flatly. “You’re not fine.”

  “Yes, I am. Just have to…have to get clean.”

  “Sweetheart, you are clean. Look at you. Half your skin’s rubbed raw. You need to stop this.”

  “I told you, Owen. Not until I get clean,” she said stubbornly.

  “Leah…” He opened the shower door, and she shrank away from him.

  “No! Don’t—”

  “Don’t touch you. I get it. I know.” He held up his hands and then grabbed a towel. “I won’t, okay? But you need to come out of there now.”

  “No.” She glared at him, lifting her chin. “I’m not clean yet. Now shut the door; you’re letting the cold air in.”

  “The cold air? Leah, you’ve been in there so long, the water is a lot colder than the air.” Owen put out a finger to test it. “It’s freezing, and you’re shivering.”

  “N-no, I’m n-not,” she protested even though her teeth were chattering now. “I’m f-fine.”

  Owen frowned. “Leah, come out right now or I’m calling an ambulance and you’re going to the hospital.” There was a ring of authority in his voice she couldn’t ignore.

  Scowling at him, Leah gave herself one more swift, allover scrub and then turned off the water. She stepped out of the shower stall and snatched the towel from him to cover her nakedness. She wanted to get past him quickly, to run to the next room and get away, be by herself. But her foot slipped in a puddle of water.

  In the blink of an eye, Leah found herself falling. Good. Maybe I’ll break my neck when I land, and this will all be over. Or I’ll hit my head and forget everything. The thought flashed through her brain, but instead of hitting the hard tile floor, she was suddenly caught and held in a pair of strong arms.

  “Hey.” Owen looked down at her anxiously, his eyes filled with worry. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said and then burst into tears.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Owen carried her to the bedroom and sat down on the bed, still holding her close. He cuddled her to his chest and rocked her, whispering soothingly that she would be all right—that everything was going to be all right.

  Leah wanted to push away from him, to scream that he would make himself dirty too if he touched her. But she didn’t have the strength. All she could do was lean her head against his broad chest and cry. And cry and cry.

  “Oh, Leah.” Owen heard the broken tone in his own voice, but he couldn’t help it. It matched the sound of Leah’s sobs. “It’s going to be all right,” he murmured over and over again, even though he had no idea how anything would ever be right again. “It’s all right, Leah. Everything is going to be all right.”

  Finally she quieted in his arms. She was wrapped in a towel, but it had come loose, and he could see the tops of her breasts, bright pink from all her frantic scrubbing. This is my fault. I never should have sent her away. I should have kept her here and…and what? Finished what we started? That would have been wrong—terrible, he reminded himself. But a little voice in his head whispered that even if he’d gone all the way with Leah, it wouldn’t have been as wrong or as terrible as what had happened to her in the cheap apartment where he’d found her.

  She was breathing deeply now, and he realized that she’d cried herself out and gone to sleep like a tired toddler.

  “Oh, Leah,” he said tenderly and kissed her cheek. Then he laid her gently on the bed and turned out the bedside light. He went to the bathroom to take off his scrub shirt and examine the wound on his shoulder. It was a long, shallow slice that had already stopped bleeding. He washed it and put some antibiotic ointment on it and then went back to bed. Careful of his wounded arm, he climbed in behind Leah and held her close, spooning her slender body against his own.

  Feeling utterly exhausted, he closed his eyes. But just as he was drifting off to sleep, he had the strangest sensation. It felt like feathers—the softest feathers in the world—brushing gently over his face. Where the softness touched, he felt his forehead smooth, and the aching tension that had been building all night somehow dissipated. His shoulders relaxed, and the cut on his arm stopped stinging. In fact, he thought drowsily, he felt better all over.

  While getting ready for bed, he’d imagined he would lie there for hours, blaming himself and worrying about Leah. But somehow after the soothing caress of the feathers, he found he was able to sleep. As he drifted off, he hoped Leah had felt the—angel wings?—feathers too.

  Love you, little sister. Love you so much… And then sleep claimed him.

  * * *

  Leah struggling weakly in his arms woke him up. “Let me go,” she whispered in a voice hoarse from sobbing for so long the night before. “Let me go, Owen.”

  “What?” He blinked, wondering what time it was. The light filtering in between the drapes was weak and diffuse. Was it early morning or early evening? Had he and Leah slept the entire day away? Whatever the case, he felt strangely refreshed and clearheaded—ready to deal with what had happened. But was Leah ready to deal?

  “Let me go,” she demanded again.

  He almost loosened his hold on her as she requested, but then he heard Jael’s voice in his head. “She needs your touch. And she needs to know that, no matter what happened, you still love her.”

  “No,” he said, turning her to face him and keeping an arm around her waist. “No, Leah. I’m not letting go until you talk to me.”

  “Please, Owen.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “You need to let me go. You…you’ll get all dirty.”

  “No, I won’t,” he said firmly. “Because you’re not dirty. You couldn’t be, no matter what he did to you.”

  “He didn’t do what you think he did,” she said dully, looking away. “He didn’t…didn’t rape me.”

  Owen felt a surge of relief so great that he could barely speak. “Oh, Leah. I’m so glad. I was so afraid—”

  “He wanted to, though. He was going to right before you came. He…he rubbed himself all over me. And he kept…kept… It was all over me, Owen. All over me.” Her voice wobbled, and her eyes filled again.

  Owen felt like someone had reached into his chest and was crushing his heart. “Leah, honey, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

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