a big mug in his hand, and Brutus rose and waddled across the room. The bulldog flopped onto his comfy bed, and let out a low moan of satisfaction.
Owen sat on the other end of the couch. “You sound like I feel, buddy,” he said jokingly to Brutus. “I think I ate one too many hamburgers. I’m stuffed.”
I smiled as I looked at Owen. The man could put down a lot of food, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. I knew he did a rigorous workout every morning in his home gym, and it definitely showed. He was far from the slender teenager I’d known, but I certainly couldn’t mourn the loss of that boy when such a devastatingly gorgeous male body had taken his place.
“It will wear off. You’ll be hungry in a few hours,” I teased.
He grinned wickedly. “Maybe I’m still a growing boy.”
Oh, Owen Sinclair was no boy. Not anymore. He even had the scruffy jaw to prove it. I knew he shaved every morning, but by dinnertime, he had that sexy five-o’clock shadow going on.
I had to tear my eyes away from him so I’d stop fantasizing about what it would be like if we were both completely naked instead of sitting in his living room on opposite sides of the couch.
“I want to talk if you’re willing,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
“Willing?” he said huskily. “I’ve been waiting for weeks now. I want to know what happened on that boat, Layla. Mostly, I think I really want to know why you backed off when we’re so damn attracted to each other that we can’t think about anything else when we’re together. Well, at least I can’t.”
“I think you already know that I’m attracted to you, too. But I can’t sleep with you knowing that you really don’t know me, Owen. I want you to see all the dark parts of me before you make a decision about whether or not you want our relationship to continue.” I couldn’t look at him. If I did, I might decide to play it safe.
“There isn’t a damn thing about you that’s dark, Layla. You’re all light.”
“No!” I denied, my voice desperate. “I’m not. That’s what you think, but it’s not true. I think I honestly wanted you to keep thinking that, but I really need you to know all of me, the good and the not so good, too.”
“Talk, Layla. Nothing you can say is ever going to make me feel any differently than I do now. Quit tormenting yourself,” he said in a low, earnest baritone.
I took a deep breath. “Remember when we were teenagers, and you wanted to know why I was alone a lot?”
“Yeah.”
“God, you’ll never know how much I actually liked it when my mother wasn’t there. It was preferable to the times she was home. My mother was a raging alcoholic, Owen. And when she drank, she was violent. It got worse after my father left. But even as I grew, I was still afraid of her, so I took every single punishment she dished out, desperately hoping for another one of those times she’d disappear. I was never brave enough to fight back.” I paused for a moment, trying to get my emotions under control.
“So those bruises that I saw sometimes . . . they weren’t accidents, or bumping into walls in the dark?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
I shook my head. “Never. I tried as hard as I could to cover them up. I think you were the only one who ever noticed. When I got older, she started using a belt instead of her hands, so that’s where those weird welts came from that you noticed our senior year. And those times that I told you I was sick, I wasn’t. Those were particularly bad beatings, so bad I couldn’t get out of bed because I was hurting. Rather than getting angry, I got more terrified, and I was really embarrassed. I mean, what girl wants to tell her friends that her mother is a violent, crazy alcoholic who doesn’t have an Off button? Most of my friends were planning proms, dances, and graduation with their mothers. I was just trying not to piss mine off enough that she’d leave me disabled for a week or two.”
“Fuck!” Owen exploded. “I should have looked harder. I should have known what was happening. We were best friends, for fuck’s sake.”
“No,” I answered calmly. “You