easiest thing in the world to treat you like you’re more than a victim. Because you are.”
Rebecca’s heart turned over. She nodded because she didn’t have any words.
Everything inside of her felt jumbled up. Like someone had ransacked her feelings. Pulling them out, riffling through them, turning them upside down and leaving nothing but a mess.
She didn’t understand. Didn’t understand what was happening inside of her. Didn’t understand what had compelled her to kiss Gage in the first place. She didn’t really understand what had been driving her actions at all starting last night and ending today with this strange bit of honesty that had passed between herself and Lane.
And that statement about her being more than a victim stuck with her. She held it close, turned it over. Maybe that was why. Maybe that was why she’d kissed Gage. Why she’d done all that with Gage.
To prove she was more. But she’d done it. It was over. She didn’t need to touch him again. And she wouldn’t.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GAGE HAD SPENT the day going over the financial state of the family with Colton. His younger brother had come to his house, and they had sat across the living room from each other, poring over various spreadsheets.
It hadn’t been the friendliest interaction, but it hadn’t been bristling with animosity either. They hadn’t made a whole lot of personal conversation, but he hadn’t minded that either.
He didn’t really know how to have a personal conversation.
Colton had told him that Sierra and the baby had gone home, and that everything was going well. Which had been good to hear.
Colton had actually seemed to be pretty happy that Gage had decided to come to the hospital. Something he had to give Rebecca credit for.
Just thinking about Rebecca sent a streak of heat through his body. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him so much, couldn’t remember the last time sex had damn near blown his head off.
He had spent a lot of years wandering from town to town, but he sure as hell hadn’t played the part of chaste monk. Moving around like that made it easy to slip in and out of casual sexual relationships. And it was how he liked it. Women who didn’t want to know much more of anything beyond the size of his dick and what he could do with his hands.
Rebecca, on the other hand, was inextricably linked to this place. And just so many different aspects of his life. It made him question his sanity. But it did not make him question his resolve to keep it at a onetime thing.
Still, even while he thought of her, he burned.
She had been a virgin. Because of her scars. Because of him.
Shame lashed over him like the crack of the whip. There was no end to it. No end to the consequences of his mistakes.
Sometimes he felt like there was a boulder resting on his chest threatening to crush him completely.
When he’d been with her, he hadn’t felt ashamed. When he’d been with her, it had felt good. Wrong, a little bit dirty, a whole lot like embracing the dark side in him rather than turning away from it. Opening up all that need he normally kept on lockdown and just letting her have it. It made him want more. It had felt so good to just let himself have that. Instead of being with a woman who barely made a ripple inside of him.
He stood from the couch, stretching out his muscles, aching from being sedentary for most of the day. He wasn’t used to this. Wasn’t used to managing this level of paperwork.
But, it was a convenient thing to bury himself in. To bury the rage and grief he felt over this entire situation in a stack of ink and paper instead of actually having to go and see his dad and try to have a conversation with the old man in his reduced state. Instead of making time to go to the house and visit his mother, who he still hadn’t seen.
Dealing with Rebecca was even easier than all of that.
Just thinking her name reminded him of her body. Of how soft she felt to his touch, of how her hair had sifted through his fingers. Of the sounds she had made when he’d made her come. All primal and unrestrained and every damn thing a man could ever want.
He was sick to want her, maybe. But then, he was kind of