me when I got out.”
There was so much buried in such a simple sentence. Time wasted, missed. Stolen.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The image of this man, this rugged man, locked away for years nearly destroyed her.
She knew the justice system was flawed. Every system had flaws, because it was run by people. But staring at someone who had suffered directly from that failure really drove the point home.
“It happened,” he said. “I’ve come to terms with it. More or less. Well, maybe come to terms with is a bad way to put it. I’m not sure if I’ve come to terms with it. But I have figured out where to go after. That’s all you can do sometimes.”
“Yeah. I know that.”
They moved deeper into the space and West’s body felt warm and solid by her side, and she did her best to ignore it.
“I bet this is it,” West said, finding a small grouping of furniture on a blank wall that matched the description that Laz had given.
Pansy maneuvered so that she was on the other side of it. “Yeah,” she said. “You going to need some help carrying it?”
He looked at her, a smile playing at his lips. She could see it, even in the dim light. “You’re going to help me carry these?”
“I’m strong,” she said.
“I know you are,” he said. “But you’re small.”
She frowned. “So? I can help with that.”
“I might wait till Emmett is finished. No pressure.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “A fifteen-year-old boy is not stronger than me.”
Suddenly, she realized that he was not looking at her face. Not at her eyes. He was looking at her mouth.
“You’re small,” he said. “But strong. And damn pretty.”
The words felt strange. They twisted in her stomach. West was the first person she could remember calling her pretty. And before that she couldn’t remember the last time she had really thought about being pretty.
She worried about her body being serviceable. Able to do its job. She didn’t really worry about how she looked. And when she had taken her clothes off in front of him in the barn she hadn’t given it much thought either. It had all been a frantic, crazy moment, and she hadn’t been insecure about what he saw when he looked at her, but more about what might happen next.
Suddenly she cared—deeply cared—that West Caldwell thought she was pretty.
It made her own mind a stranger. Her own body out of her control.
And that was foreign. Utterly and completely.
Somehow, down here in this basement, the basement of an old museum in the town that she loved so much, she didn’t even really mind.
Why was she here? She was afraid that she was here for this. For this moment. This long, steady moment that seemed to stretch endlessly in the dark. Where West was looking at her mouth and she was hoping it was a promise.
He shoved his phone into his pocket, and as soon as he was finished with that, he reached out and touched her face. She closed her eyes, and she let the particular weakness that took over her when West touched her win.
She let him melt her bones. Let him turn her muscles into jelly.
Let him take that body that had always been about strength, and had always been about serviceability, and turn it into something that belonged to him.
She sighed. As if it was the invitation he’d been waiting for, he caught that sigh with his mouth and kissed her.
It was deep and hard and consuming. Not gentle like the previous moment had been. And she was glad. She didn’t want gentle.
No.
She felt like something foreign. An entity that she didn’t understand. And right now, didn’t want to have to.
Because she could allow herself to get caught up in this.
No one was here. No one would know.
Except for him.
Didn’t he already know her secrets? That a man had never touched her until him. Didn’t he already know what her body looked like, and what sounds she made?
Didn’t he already know that he could make her mindless?
That she felt like she didn’t fit anywhere. That sometimes she felt alone.
West already knew all those things, so she didn’t have to be afraid.
He had already seen her weakness.
And he was the only one.
What harm was there and letting him see it again?
It was why she had been here. From the beginning.
She could admit that now. Now that his lips were consuming hers. Now that his tongue was sliding against hers, delving deep, and his rough hands