Page 79 of Timelessly Ours
“Then I’ll just be your…man. Because I’ll never be un-gentleman with you.”
My stomach flips. He’s not closing the door on…whatever this is between us. He’s just giving me time.
Then all at once, my stomach tightens. Because that fear is back. That what I’d tell him might be too much. I feel the shivers along my arms despite the heat lamp and hot water covering most of my body.
“Nicole.” His eyes dip briefly, and he rattles the box. “I lied. There’s more than enough and if there isn’t, I’ll fly to New York right now to get more if it means you’ll open up to me.”
I chuckle nervously and bite my lip as he reaches for my hand.
Taking it, I let him pull me beside him until our knees touch, barely. He pretends not to notice my tension as he plucks a piece of chocolate from the box. “This one is for me. Because I’m about to make a confession.”
Silently, I huff out a relieved breath.
“I’ve always wanted your side of the story. But was never in the position to ask for it. Not because I felt sorry for you or because it intrigued me in some sick way or anything. But because I despised the things I was hearing. The level of judgement instead of compassion. And when I saw you again…that want became something much more powerful. I wanted to help. I wanted to make you smile. Then…you actually smiled. And I’ve been obsessed with it ever since.”
“Making me smile?” I ask with a hopeful grin.
But he doesn’t grin back when he answers. “Making everything right for you.”
I swallow.
I pick a piece of chocolate from the box. “I’ve wanted to share my side of the story with you. Most people know that when I was sixteen, my mother left me with some men who she claimed were her friends.”
He strokes my hair and nods.
“I never asked where she went to get it.”
His eyes darken.
“Where the story changes… as it traveled through town, is what happened to me when I was there.”
He touches my hand. “Only if you’re ready.”
I smile up at him, then focus on his hand in mine. “I was scared. I started to think that these weren’t her friends. That maybe she wasn’t coming back. They weren’t touching me. These men, they’re drug dealers, not rapists. I wasn’t even restrained. But I was… somewhat of a bother to them because I was restless and freaking out. So they shot me up with something. It was two of them. One…had to hold me down.”
He growls a curse, then brings my hand to his mouth, kissing it softly.
“The part that no one except Nick and Cora know is that…it wasn’t just that one time. She left me with them four or five times over a few months. I kept going back because I was afraid of what they would do to her if I didn’t. But every time one of them came near me, I tensed.”
His jaw tightens and he turns away from me—I don’t need to see his face to know he’s cursing himself for last night.
I wrap my fingers around his arm, making him turn to me.
“Did they ever…”
I shake my head. “Nothing more than taunt me, make me think they were going to do something.”
He looks like he wants to ask more but drops it and squeezes my hand, reassuring me that it’s safe to continue if I need to.
I pop the chocolate I so deserve in my mouth and let it melt. “I’ve been with men, since. I didn’t want to be a prude forever. When I was twenty-two, I met someone who agreed to no strings attached because I thought it was an easy thing to get over with.”
“Was it?”
I shake my head like it’s no big deal. “I didn’t tell him I was a virgin so…”
Another low curse and he swipes a hand across his face like there was something he could have done about it. Then he looks at me. “How can I help?”
He doesn’t realize this, but he’s been helping me. For the last two years. The stolen glances, the coy grins, giving me permission to call him by his first name. The mundane small talk between us that felt both intimate and a little bit erotic.
