Page 31 of Pining for Pierce
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“H—He was so full-on,” she says, my muscles tensing, although I do my best not to let her feel it.
“Did he hurt you? Did he touch you in a way you didn’t want?”
“No… well, yes, I guess he did.”
My instinct is to pull on my helmet, ride back to town, find Kaiden, and live up to my bad boy image by beating the living shit out of him. But that’s not what Harley needs right now, and I hold her just a little tighter as she sucks in a stuttered breath.
“Can you explain?” I ask, realizing this may not be as easy for her as I thought.
“When he kissed me on Monday…” she says, her voice trailing to a whisper as she pulls a face. It’s one that tells me the memory of that kiss isn’t what it ought to be.
“You mean when you were crossing the street?”
“Yes.” She looks up, her puddled eyes making contact with mine and the sight of them breaking my heart. “You saw?”
“It was kinda hard to miss, but I wasn’t sure if he’d kissed you again… after that.”
“He did. When he walked me back to my car.”
“Okay, but are you saying that when he kissed you as you were crossing the street, you didn’t want him to?”
She nods her head. “We’d barely said hello. I wasn’t even thinking about kissing at that stage of the evening, but he didn’t give me any choice. He just grabbed me. I didn’t get the chance to say ‘no’, and even though I was trying to push him away, he just carried on. Then afterwards, he had the arrogance to suggest that his kiss was better than anything I’d have been used to.”
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“Asshole,” I mutter, although I know Harley heard me. Her smile gives it away. “What about the second time he kissed you?” I ask. “You said he did it again when he walked you back to your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Was that the same?”
“No. It was worse. His hands were… they were everywhere.” She shudders, clearly remembering what that felt like. I glance down and realize I’m still holding her. She hasn’t pulled away, and maybe she even welcomes the contact from someone she knows. I can’t be sure. The one thing I’m certain of is I wanna do more than that. I can’t, obviously… not while she’s reliving that memory. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hold her close and tell her it’ll all be okay. “I told him to stop,” she says, like she’s going through the event in her mind.
“And did he?” I ask, fear rushing through me.
“Yes.”
I sigh out my relief, nodding my head. “Did he apologize?”
“No. He said he’d wait… but the next time I saw him, he was all over me again. Like that was his idea of waiting.”
“Did you try talking to him?”
“How?” She says, leaning away from me. “He never let me speak.”
“If he was like that, why did you keep seeing him?”
“Because he kept catching me off guard. And besides, like I said to you earlier, he wasn’t listening. I tried to say I didn’t wanna see him, but he wouldn’t let me finish a sentence. He’d just talk over me, or shut me down.” She shakes her head. “I don’t think he’s capable of listening.”
“I’m not surprised. Knowing his reputation…”
She folds her arms across her chest between us, which interrupts me, right before she says, “If you’re gonna say I told you so, or remind me you warned me off, I’ll…”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything like that.”
