More Than Protect You (More Than Words #6.5) - Shayla Black Page 0,40
I can only guess it’s because she’s trying to gauge whether we have a future. And she won’t trust any assurance I give her until she’s spilled all the gory details.
“He kissed you back?”
She nods. “From the second our lips met, it was on. We climbed into the tent, and my clothes were off two minutes later. I helped him get me naked.”
There’s the self-blame in her voice again, and I’m so angry that I’m struggling to keep my temper in check. “Look, I know where you’re going with this. If you think he only had sex with you because you encouraged it, you’re wrong. From what I’ve heard of this guy, it was just a matter of time before he hit on you. Stop blaming yourself. He’s the one who took advantage of your eagerness and naiveté.”
“I wasn’t so naive that I didn’t know we were going to have sex. In fact, that’s what I wanted.” She frowns. “I just didn’t expect it to be so rushed and to hurt so much.”
That pisses me off even more. I don’t want details but… “Did he just jump on you and shove his way inside you?”
She flushes and looks down. “More or less. And I did everything he told me to since I figured he knew what he was doing, but it wasn’t as if we’d planned anything. Except…” She frowns. “He had condoms. So…yeah.”
“He was prepared, then. Why else would he have brought them on a camping trip with his buddy and their kids unless he had a plan?” Granted, he couldn’t have plotted Stephen’s appendicitis, but he may have been cooking up something else in the hopes of getting Amanda alone. “It wasn’t your fault, Mandy. Even if you thought you wanted to have sex with him that night, you were too young to understand everything that would follow.”
“I think you and my therapist speak the same language.” She tries to joke. “But you’re right. I never stopped to think about the after part. I convinced myself that life would be perfect if he wanted me, too. And, of course, I was sure he would never have sex with me if he didn’t love me. I’d known him most of my life, so it never occurred to me that he would hurt or use me.”
At fifteen, she had no way of knowing how crazy lust and the forbidden drive some men. “So you were surprised when your life wasn’t perfect after he took your innocence?”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t love you, Mandy.”
“He didn’t.”
“He preyed on you.”
“I know.”
“And he hurt you.”
“A lot. I mean, I expected losing my virginity to be painful. A couple of my friends had already done it with their boyfriends, so they told me. I even overheard one of Stephen’s girlfriends talking to him about her disastrous first time with another guy. But I expected Barclay to care, you know. But he was so impatient. It was horrible.” She shakes her head. “And I was such an idiot. I wrote off his rush as passion neither of us could control.”
I don’t blame her for trying to make the unnecessary pain he’d inflicted fit with the world view she saw through her rose-colored glasses, but she simply hadn’t been worldly enough to know that Barclay could have done so much to make the experience good for her.
“Did he apologize afterward?”
She laughs bitterly. “No. He kissed me again, told me he’d been wanting to do that for two years, and was glad I was willing to let him. Then he swore the painful part was over, donned another condom, and…we did it again.”
“Jesus.” Barclay Reed was clearly not just a pig and a pedophile, but a selfish asshole, too. The world is better off without him. I wonder how Griff turned out to be a seemingly good guy with half his genes and an upbringing courtesy of Barclay. It’s a miracle.
But the look on Mandy’s face tells me she’s expecting my condemnation. “I’ve shocked you.”
“You didn’t, baby. He did. He should have known better. He should never have touched you.” I rake a hand through my hair. If this is hard to hear, I’m sure it’s doubly hard for Mandy to tell me. “What happened next?”
“I learned one thing about Barclay fast; he was insatiable. I don’t know where he got the stamina, but we spent most of the night having sex.”
“You must have been sore and exhausted and…” I’m stunned, and frankly, a little sick to my stomach.