to find out why my only friend wanted nothing to do with me. She’d broken down in my arms, sobbing in a way that had torn my heart in two. Turned out, that hadn’t been Paris’s first experience. Her father molested her throughout the years, and her head was more fucked up than mine.”
He fell quiet, resting his forehead against hers as she gently traced the tattoos on his chest. When it seemed he wasn’t going to continue, Mak asked. “What happened to her?”
“For months, she begged me to help her find a way to leave. Finally, I caved. I couldn’t take seeing her so miserable. What the hell did I know about life? I was a stupid fourteen-year-old kid. We hatched a plan, and she ran away. Six months later, authorities found her dead on the street. She’d been working a corner.” His voice caught. “All she’d wanted was to escape, and she ended up dying the same way she lived, in filth. I think I’m so superior because I strip at a club and have never worked a corner. But I’m the same.”
“No. You’re not the same. This conversation alone proves that.” So many unhealed wounds to this man’s psyche. She circled her arms around him and squeezed tight. What could she say? The story was horrifying and taught him lessons about life that drove his thinking and actions for years. So she didn’t bother with fluffy words of sorry and empty sympathies. She held him and pressed her lips to his neck, where his pulse beat strong and steady.
“So yeah,” he continued after clearing his throat. “I fuck in a way that ensures no one will form emotional attachments, but, Christ, Mak, I can’t stop thinking about you and wanting more. I get it if this is all too much for you. And I can’t make long-term promises because I don’t know if I’ll fuck it all up.”
He wouldn’t get the chance to screw anything up. She’d be the one.
“I’m a shitty bet, but I swear to God I’ll give you everything I got.”
He kissed her then, hard and desperate as though showing with his body how strongly he meant his words. Though she loved it, the kiss wasn’t necessary to plead his case. He had her.
As foolish as it was. As hard as the crash would be when she eventually needed to leave, she found it completely impossible to turn away from him. Her heart and mind wanted him as badly as her body craved him.
When he pulled back, lust burned in his gaze, heating her blood to a simmer. As they stared at each other, she swallowed her fear. After years of keeping secrets, she was about to do the one thing she’d forbidden her oldest siblings from ever allowing to happen. Again and again, she’d coached them on keeping the details of their past a secret. Under no circumstances were they to reveal where they’d come from. No matter how much they loved their friends. No matter how hard Lee fell for a girl or Amy a boy. Over and over, she’d made them swear to keep quiet and practice a lie they’d come up with about their parent’s deaths from a car accident.
And now she was about to break her most important rule for a man who’d crashed through his barriers for her. But he’d been so honest and open with her, and their shared traumas had her feeling they were kindred souls.
“I was married,” she whispered.
Thunder stilled. The poor guy had to be confused, seeing as how she came across as such a sexual newbie. “Tell me,” he said, giving the words back to her. “I’ll keep your secrets safe, Makenna. Always.”
“I grew up across the country, in a…well I guess the best word to describe it is a commune-like place. We called it the community, but it didn’t have an official name. It was made of the kind of people you see documentaries about on TV. Preppers who stockpiled guns, food, ammo, and other supplies in preparation for Armageddon. They are a militia group. Violent, paranoid, bigoted. Hell, they’re probably considered a domestic terrorist organization by now.”
Thunder remained quiet, focused on her face as his hands stroked her back. The steady up and down trail of his hands kept her even.
“The community made their money farming. All the men farmed, but especially the male children. Long, hard days not appropriate for kids. And they participated in military-style training. Every boy was