I will never be the same.

Some things imprint us so deeply, we can never return to what we were before. But would I want to? Sure, I’m more guarded, but I like to think I have more compassion because I’ve known true suffering, and I hurt when I see it in others. I may be more cynical, but I like to think I’m wiser, too.

When I told my story, some said I was a hero. I’m not. I’m just a woman who ended up in a bad relationship with a bad man and had to fight my way out of it. I did what I had to do to protect my daughter and to protect myself. That doesn’t make me special, but it does make me a survivor. It’s happening to women just like me and nothing like me all the time. To our neighbors, to our best friends, to our sisters. It’s happening behind closed doors, or even out in the open, documented in redacted police reports or in a million views on viral videos that we judge and poke at and debate.

Even when I shared my story, everyone had opinions. I should have left sooner. I should have pressed charges. Why didn’t I trust the system to “punish” him? Why didn’t I tell everyone? Was it really self-defense, or was it revenge?

If you’ve never had to fight for your life in your own home, if you’ve never had someone you thought loved you hurt you the most, then you don’t know. But I do. I know how it feels to wake up every day living in a nightmare and sleeping with a monster, and I told the world in my own words and on my own terms.

Maybe for women like me, after what we’ve lived through, what we almost died through, love is harder to come by. But it can come. August is living proof that it can come. Truly. Richly. After all I’ve been through, August is my reward.

When he sees me at the door, he startles a little, then grins and puts a finger to his lips, shushing me. He walks to the hall and closes the bedroom door.

“Don’t shush me,” I whisper-hiss with a smile.

“I don’t want you to wake her up.” He turns me by my shoulder and pops my bottom, making me squeak and jump a little. He urges me ahead of him down the hall. “I have plans for you.”

He walks behind me toward his bedroom, and I’d know his footfalls anywhere.

They say I’d follow you to the ends of the earth. When he pauses, they say I’ll wait until you’re ready. And he has. August has asked me to marry him three times in the last year, and every time I’ve said no. It has nothing to do with not trusting him, and everything to do with not trusting myself. I know that sounds weird and I can’t explain it, but these are the issues I work through in counseling.

“Plans?” I ask teasingly, turning to face him and walking backward. “What kind of plans, Mr. West?”

He gives me a gentle shove into his bedroom, closing and locking the door behind us. I’m immediately pressed into the door, crowded in the most delicious way by his big body. I’m crowded by his affection and pressed by his love. His hands, commanding and gentle, skim my sides and mold to my waist. He lifts my breasts with his thumbs. My breath hangs in my throat while I wait for a stroke across my nipples that never comes. He knows, damn him, grinning, his hands melting away. His fingers meet when he splays them across my back. He’s so much bigger. Someone standing behind him wouldn’t even see me on the other side of his broad shoulders. He’s a wall and a fortress. He’s twice my size, but I feel no fear. Only trust. Only sheltered.

“Road trips suck.” His chin, a sexy scruff of bristles, scrapes the curve of my neck and shoulder when he kisses me there. “I missed you.”

Cradling my head, he sinks his fingers into my hair and lowers his head to hover over my lips. For a few seconds, our breath mingles. We share the very air keeping us alive, and then our tongues touch, tease, and tangle. We torture each other with tiny licks and half-kisses until I need more, need to hold and clutch and grip him. I roam the hardness of his chest, caress his biceps, trace the strong sinew in his forearm, and search for his hands. I thread our fingers together, our palms fused by a connection as electric today as it was the night we met. He coaxes my off-the-shoulder sweatshirt completely off my shoulder, so my naked breast comes into view.

“Hmmmmm.” The hungry monosyllable rumbles in his chest, rattles behind his lips. He frees his hands to scoop under my arms and lift me until my feet leave the floor. The wet, velvety warmth of his mouth surrounding my breast, the tantalizing bite of teeth and suction at my nipple, leaves me boneless. I’m limp and suspended in the air while he drinks from me like a man dying of thirst.

“August.” My hips move reflexively, seeking friction, satisfaction. “Baby, come on.”

“What?” he mumbles around my breast, the vibration of the word tightening my nipples and causing my core to clench.

I lift and curl my legs around his waist, thrusting slowly, deliberately. I burrow my nose through the thick curls to whisper in his ear, “Fuck me.”

His mouth drifts to the other breast, swiping the areola lovingly with his tongue. With his hands sliding down to cup my ass, he walks us to the bed and lays me down gently. He stands there, watching me with the same protective reverence he watched my daughter, only there’s also lust in his eyes. Passion. Hunger.

Not releasing his gaze, I tug the sweatshirt over my head and work my arms free of the sleeves. My nipples peak in the cooler air, and he fixes his eyes there, a hard swallow bobbing his Adam’s apple.

I lift my hips an inch or so, just enough to hook my thumbs in my yoga pants and push them past my knees and over my toes. I toss them across the room and wait for his smile. He traces a finger over my purple and gold boy-short underwear.

“You little traitor,” he says with husky humor.

My reply is a throaty chuckle.

We both stop laughing when he grabs the panties at my hips and jerks them off, throwing them to join my discarded yoga pants in some corner. His face sobers, and there are embers in his eyes. I want to stoke them—to blow on them. To enflame him the way he burns through me, like gasoline in my veins. A blaze in my heart.

Slowly, I bring my knees up and dig my heels into the mattress, opening my legs wide. He bites his lip and presses me open more.

“God, Iris. Yes, baby. Show me.”

He palms my pussy. His huge hand covers it, possesses it. One long finger caresses me in the divide between the lips where I’m swollen and throbbing. The thickness of two fingers invades, presses, and hooks inside me. My back arches off the bed, straining against the pleasure. My hips thrust in time with his fingers fucking me. He’s a conductor, and my body sings for him, my cry of release a note sustained, held.

I close my eyes and bunch my hands at my sides, holding onto this perfect sensation for as long as I can. When I open my eyes, August is staring at me, and the look on his face brings tears to my eyes. To have someone look at me like that and to have someone feel the way he does—it’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever had. Every time he touches me, he restores my faith and reminds me what pure love feels like.

“I love watching you come,” he says, one finger tracing the sensitive skin inside my thigh.

“Why?” I catch his hand and pull him toward me until he’s up on the bed between my legs, and I move to my knees, facing him.

“You’re so vulnerable.” He tugs on a strand of my hair streaming around my arms and shoulders. “I love that you trust me with that, that you’re so unguarded.”

“That’s because when I’m with you, I’m not unguarded.” I kiss the back of his hand, blinking at tears. “You guard me. I know you’ll always protect me.”

“But I didn’t. I missed what was happening, what he was doing.” There’s a sheen of tears over his stormy eyes, gray skies and rain. “You’ve been through so much, Iris. You can protect yourself.”

“But when I’m with you, I know I don’t have to.” I lick my lips and taste my own tears, but now they taste like joy.

He traces a tiny scar on my hip that he probably never noticed before he knew about Caleb. The first time we made love after he found out, he asked about every little scar and nick he’d never thought twice about. But each scar told a story, and he wanted to know them all. He kissed all the places Caleb hurt me, and our lovemaking was my perfect revenge. Every soft, tender thing Caleb tried to deny me, I have with August.

“I wish . . .” August gulps, swallowing the emotion alive on his face. “I wish I could take it all away.”

I cup his chin and catch his eyes in the dim light. “We don’t get to take away the bad things, but it’s okay.” My smile is a work of triumph—a victory cry. “I survived them.”

I reach between us and wrap my hand around him, relishing his grunt and gasp, his groan of pleasure as I stroke him long and hard, up and down. “Can we make love now?”

August spears his fingers into my hair, resting his forehead against mine, his breath laboring more with every pull. “I love you, Iris. So much.

I nod, lick his neck, and suck at his collarbone, one hand steadily pumping him between us, the other reaching up to skim over his nipple with my fingertips. All his air expels in one extended breath. With a growl, he grabs my ass and pulls my legs over his knees. I lock my ankles at the small of his back while he brushes my hand away between us. I sink onto him and moan. With our chests flush, his answering groan vibrates between my breasts. He pistons inside me relentlessly.

“August, harder,” I beg, dizzy with pleasure.

With his lip between his teeth, his dark brows furrowed, he goes harder and deeper. He goes so deep he finds the remnants of my pain and soothes them. He goes so hard his love is an undeniable force that takes me by storm. There is room for nothing else. He takes up all the space, consumes my thoughts, and for a moment, remakes our memories so there’s only ever been him for me and only ever been me for him.

It is sublime.

“We should have eaten this while it was hot,” I say around a bite of not-quite-warm pizza, followed by a sip of tepid root beer.

“I wanted to eat you while you were hot,” August says, his grin cocky.