happened between them earlier today was burned into him. Every touch from Pansy Daniels was burned into him. Sunk down beneath his skin. He couldn’t begin to understand it. Couldn’t begin to understand the madness that took over him when her lips touched his. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted to understand it. Wasn’t sure what was required. It was a good thing, just to be lost in it. Just to be held captive by the excitement.
It was a kind of dirty magic he hadn’t known he’d wanted.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He reached out and brushed his knuckles over her cheek, the intensity of the impact of that soft skin against the back of his fingers shocking him. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
He wanted her and no mistake. But he needed her to know exactly who he was. Exactly what he was. Because he couldn’t stand the idea of fooling her, even unintentionally.
If she was hurt as a result of what happened between them it wouldn’t be because of his lack of honesty.
“I’m... I went and I played the part of slick sophisticate for a while, but it’s not me. I’m a lot closer to the man I was in prison than I am to the man who works in an office five days a week. I’m burned-out. I want to start over, but I don’t want that life. Not again.”
“That’s your way of telling me you don’t want to get married.”
He nodded his head. “Yeah, basically.”
“Right. West, I don’t want to get married. But I also... I don’t understand what’s happening between us. And I don’t mean that in the sense of wanting to know where it’s going. It has nothing to do with you, actually. It has everything to do with me.”
He didn’t know how he felt about that statement. He would like for this to have something to do with him a little bit. Because whatever was happening to him... It had something to do with her. She was the one that had been a virgin. Not him.
He had plenty of experience. He knew how to separate sexual desire from actual feelings.
What he was feeling right now was a disruptive level of sexual desire, it was true. But it wasn’t feelings.
“I’ve always followed the rules,” she said. Then she closed her eyes. “I haven’t always followed the rules. I... I was so bad when I was a kid. I just felt like there was something wild inside of me trying to get out all the time. And I had so much energy and I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Looking at her, it made sense. She had a lot of hard packed muscle that suggested she spent a frequent amount of time being active. Even now.
She looked down and continued, “When I wanted something... I couldn’t help myself. I just took it. I took it because I wanted it. I would steal cookies when they were being saved for a bake sale. And stick my finger in a birthday cake. My parents would get so frustrated with me. Especially my dad. He would say that there are rules set out for us for a reason. And I just...” She met his gaze. “I didn’t care, West. I didn’t care. All I cared about was feeling good. The day that my parents left for their Alaska trip I ended up eating half the brownies my mom made to bring with them. She wasn’t that angry, but my dad... I ran away. I ran away and I hid. I didn’t say goodbye to them. And I can still hear him in my head yelling for me. And telling me...that I was bad.”
He could sense the enormity of the emotion, vibrating beneath her skin. But her eyes were dry. Her expression stoic. “And then they died. They died on their way to Alaska. The plane went down... My mom and dad, Logan’s mother, Colt and Jake’s mother and father, they were gone. We were all left alone. And the last thing that my father thought about me was that I was bad. I just wanted to fix it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Was to find a way to be good. So that the biggest thing I was...wasn’t a disappointment. Wasn’t bad. And I’ve done that. I never drank underage. Even now, I keep it to one beer, one beer just like he did. I have this job. I want to be