Page 99 of His to Seduce
We were in someone else’s house. Once I started, I didn’t think I could stop. Wouldn’t want to stop. Vaguely, voices rang in the distance, soft and muted as if they were whispering, or hiding from us. I didn’t care. Let them.
“I guess I didn’t realize I’d done that, but yeah.”
“I still want to kill him. Have thought of a thousand ways to hurt the man who hurt you.”
Her throat bobbed and she nodded. Like she’d thought the same thing but was too kind to admit it.
“I like order,” she said. “I like my lists and plans, and it’s the only way…” She inhaled a breath and, damn, I wanted her in my arms. I wanted to comfort her while she settled and calmed. “Afterward, it was the only way I knew how to move on, by planning everything and staying safe and guarded.” She laughed, shaking her head. It was beautiful and tortured and I wanted to stop her, but I needed her to continue more than I needed my next breath. “And you, you push. You throw me into oceans and off cliffs and out of planes, and you take all my plans and lists and crumple them into balls and light them on fire, making them vanish.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Not really. I wanted her open and honest, not to throw away years of therapy.
She reached for me. My skin burned as painted red fingertips slid down my forearm. The first touch from her in weeks, and it wasn’t nearly enough. A groan fell from my throat and I stared at her hand on my skin.
“I loved it that you did.” My eyes snapped to hers, green eyes misty with tears, and her nose crinkled as she tried to force them back. “I needed it and didn’t realize it. God, this is hard, David. So hard for me. I hate reliving it, hate thinking about it.”
She squeezed my arm, nails digging into skin. Andyes,I liked the pain. She shushed me as my mouth fell open, but what could I say other than the words that had scared her before?
“Evan, that’s his name. He was a bartender.”
Click.A piece snapped into place.
“Camden.” I lifted my hand and brushed it across her cheek. She rubbed against it. My thumb wiped away a tear. “I get it now.”
Most of it; the rest we had time for.
“Let me finish or I might lose my nerve.”
“Here?” I wanted privacy. But behind me, the voices that had been whispering were now silenced. Either they’d left or were listening.
She nodded. “He showed up at our trailer when my mom was at work. Said he loved my hair, said the way I’d smiled at him told him I wanted it.”
Click, click, click.The remaining pieces, all of them. Her hair and her demeanor…everything fell into place perfectly, and the resulting picture was more complex than I could have imagined.
I growled, the sound low and guttural. She placed her hand on my chest, but it didn’t soothe anything.
“I fought him, and got free when he loosened his belt…just enough to give me time to reach the kitchen. And we fought for the knife. He was so large and strong and angry, but I was scared, and that was more powerful, I guess, because even though he got it from my hand and caught my leg and cut me deep and I screamed, somehow I ended up getting it into his stomach.”
Too bad she didn’t kill him. Or maybe that would be worse for her, taking a life. I knew the responsibility of that weight.
She hiccupped and I pulled her to my chest. With her cheek against it, my shirt grew wet immediately as her shoulders shook and I wrapped her in my arms.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, forcing myself to be calm and comforting when all I wanted to do was hit fist to skin. Evan’s skin.
“I know.”
I held her, breathed out onto the top of her head. What was left to say?
“You pushed me past all of it.” Her voice was muffled against my chest. Still the most beautiful sound. “My hair, my lists, my fears…you pushed, but you gave me so much more. For the first time in my life, I had hope.”
Fuck.Yes.
She pulled back then, wiping a trail of mascara from her cheek, and sniffled. “I loved you for that.”
“Cam—”
She shook her head. “I love you for it.”
My hands slid to her jaw, tilting her head back. “I love you.”
