Unbreak Me

by Michelle Hazen

  The thin metal of the shed creaked as Andra leaned against it.

  Why the hell wouldn’t she leave him be? He had to stop to throw rounds on the other side so the bar wouldn’t tip off its stand. The forty-five-pound weights felt like paper plates, as if he could crumple them in his hands. Yeah, right now he was definitely not the kind of guy Andra needed to teach her how to trust again.

  As he finished loading the bar, the raw handcuff marks around his wrists glared at him. Would she recognize them? She had little pink marks around her wrists, too. Blood roared through his head as the marks on his wrists overlaid his memory of hers. And they matched.

  He hit the bar with the flat of both palms, sending it jumping out of the stand and crashing to the floor, metal plates bouncing off.

  “LJ!”

  He grabbed the weight bench and squeezed until it creaked, telling himself if he punched the shed wall, it’d fold and he’d need a new shed. “Please go inside,” he whispered.

  He knew that asshole had tied her up. She’d told him that. Funny how that did nothing to quench the fire in his brain at the fresh thought of her yanking against handcuffs until she started to bleed.

  Fuck, they made you so powerless. He’d pulled so hard today, and the handcuffs had barely scuffed the skin. His marks wouldn’t even scar.

  Her hands spread over his back, gentle and so small. “LJ, what happened to you?” she whispered. And then she was hugging him, her cheek over his spine; his wet, filthy shirt against her skin.

  He pulled away, pacing out of the shed. “I’ll be back.” If she wouldn’t go, he would.

  She must have sprinted to catch up with him, because in an instant she was in front of him, her eyes flashing. “You don’t have to hide from me every time you’re angry. You don’t scare me, LJ Delisle.”

  As he stared down at her, something shifted in him. She was telling the truth.

  He hated the way those cops had eyed him today, one hand on their Tasers and the other creeping toward their guns. But that wasn’t the way Andra was looking at him now.

  “Why not?” he asked, his voice scraping raw out of his throat.

  She shook her head. “You’re the last person alive who would hurt me. The only thing I’m scared of is what you’d do if somebody else did.”

  She took his hand, and he folded his fingers gently around hers, letting her lead him back toward the shed. She sat down on the weight bench and pulled him down next to her.

  “Now tell me what happened to you today, because whatever news could piss you off this much actually does freak me out.”

  “Not news.” He let go of her hand and bent forward to lean his elbows on his knees, rubbing his eyes. “It sure ain’t anything new, Andie-girl.”

  “Okay.”

  He sighed. “Took a two-day job as extra bodies for an overbooked moving company. We filled up the moving van. Instead of making two trips, Ty put the last few things in my truck. Cops came driving by and saw a couple of black guys loading antique furniture out the back door of a Garden District mansion into a Datsun. They decided we were stealing it. We weren’t wearing uniforms, the moving company’s van had already gone ahead, and—”

  He shoved to his feet, picked up the bench press bar, and resettled it in the stand with a grunt of effort. She moved off the bench to make space for him.

  “It’s always like this. I’m doing my job, trying to take care of my family, and they think they know who I am just by looking at me. But I don’t want to get shot, so I’ve got to be all goddamn meek and polite, even though they’re the ones in the wrong.”

  “Shot just for loading a truck? Of course they wouldn’t—”

  He glared at her. “Don’t start. You don’t know how the cops are down here. They’re dancing on their toes, waiting for us to forget to pay for a pack of gum so they can work us like a punching bag. Meanwhile, if we call them because we’re getting robbed or something bad’s going down, they take their sweet time coming across the canal because they figure we deserve what’s coming to us.”

  “I’m sure they don’t do it on purpose. It’s a big city. They probably have a lot of calls to deal with.”

  “Oh, no? During the storm, cops saw a black guy walking around near a store and they shot him for a looter.” His eyes flared. “That’s not the kind of thing that happens to white people, Andra. When a stranger picked him up and took him to another police station to try to get help, the cops beat up the Good Samaritan and then burned the first guy’s body to try and hide the evidence.”

  She sucked in a breath. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Just a day in the life, sweet girl.”

  He lay down, rolling out his neck before he lifted the bar, dropped it toward his chest, and caught it at the last minute so he could feel the hard snap of muscle.

  “I tried to tell the cops today that we were hired to move the furniture, and I barely got the words out of my mouth before I was facedown beside my own truck, with cuffs on. Ty told them we were paid to be there, but they didn’t care. They were trying to stuff us into the back of the squad car when the owners came home and gave them holy hell for messing with us.”

  That was just lucky. Most people would have fired his ass for stirring up trouble. These guys gave him a bonus and said if he came back tomorrow, they’d double his wage to make up for the incident. Of course, to do that, he’d have to beg Andra’s help with his mother again.

  He racked up five reps over his previous record, trying to burn away the thought of that.

  “That’s . . .” She exhaled. He set down the bar, shaking out his arms. “What’s wrong with the world, LJ? How can they—”

  He didn’t answer. Just picked up the bar and pushed all his strength up through the weight of it over and over again. All that effort changed nothing. But maybe it would make him tired enough that he could bear it for another night.

  She sat down against the wall of the shed, her legs crossed carelessly in front of her as she stared at the floor. The bar started to tilt in his hands, and he snapped his gaze straight again.

  “I thought I understood,” she said. “Back in Montana, when you’d get upset because people were looking at you. After a couple of days here, I thought I really got it, you know? How self-conscious it makes you feel. But everything you’re talking about, it doesn’t make sense to me. Even when you told me you got pulled over taking the ranch truck to get an oil change, I thought, they must have had another reason. I mean, inside their heads, do they know they’re treating you different because you’re . . . black?”

  The bar wobbled, and he had to set it back in the supports, even though he wasn’t anywhere near ready to stop. He ground his teeth, trying to rein himself in enough to speak. “That little hesitation before you said ‘black,’ like it’s a dirty word? That’s what it is, Andra. That’s the whole damned thing.”

  “What do you mean? I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to . . .” In his peripheral vision, he saw her curl a little tighter. “I just don’t know if it’s okay to say. If I say it, am I the same as they are, boiling everything down to a color?”

  He rolled up to sitting. “It is a color, but it’s a hell of a lot more than that. Black is what I am, Andra.”

  “But it’s not everything you are!” She sat up straighter. “There are a million things about you that have nothing to do with that, and—”

  “Of course there are. But they don’t change what people see when they look at me.” He grabbed her hand. She tensed at the speed of the movement but didn’t pull away. “Look.” He held their hands up in front of her face, her fingers starkly pale against his. “Just look, for once. They’re never going to look the same. And when white people claim they’re color-blind, they don’t notice the difference, it’s a lie. My history is not your history; my culture is not your culture. I don’t want them to be. I’m proud of who I am and
where I come from. All I want is to not be the last one rescued in a flood but the first one to wind up in handcuffs.”

  Her fingers stiffened in his. “I never—”

  “I know you didn’t.” His voice softened. “But when you make excuses, like maybe the people at the store were staring at you, not me, or maybe the cops were just too busy to come our way . . . that’s bullshit, Andra. People claim a million damned reasons for treating you and me differently except the real one. They won’t say it’s our color, so they can act like it’s deeper than that.”

  He cradled her hand between both of his, because even in the steamy heat of the night, it was chilled, trembling.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice caught.

  “Me too.” He let his head drop and rested his forehead on their hands. “Me too, Andie-girl. But I need you to listen instead of trying to explain things away. Okay? That’s what I need.” He pressed a kiss to her hand, breathing in her scent for a minute before he let her go. He picked up one of the weights, bracing his elbow against his knee for bicep curls.

  “So am I imagining you pushing the Saints cup to the back of the cupboard?” Andra’s hands fidgeted in her lap. “Because okay, yes, we’re different, but when we were back home and the other employees didn’t invite you to watch baseball games at Curt’s, you hated it.” Andra tilted her head. “You said it was stupid they thought you wouldn’t like baseball because you’re black. So what? Do you think I wouldn’t like the Saints because I’m white?”

  He swapped hands for the weight, moving through reps faster than he should as shame fisted in the base of his neck. “Not because of the Saints.”

  He didn’t want to say this, and he knew there was no way to avoid it now. Still, he could tell how much courage it had taken her to confront him, so he matched it, pulling his eyes back up to hers.

  “Because it’s plastic.” Her long lashes flickered with hurt. He hurried to add, “No man wants to bring a woman home to plastic go cups and a mattress with no frame.” He dropped the weight and tried to smile, though his lips felt too tight. “If I had my way, I’d have welcomed you with chandeliers and vaulted ceilings and cut crystal.”

  “You should know me better than to think that’s what I want.”

  He hung his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his sweaty neck. “I know it. Don’t make it any easier.”

  “It’s not just you, though. It can’t be. Because when Mona came over today, she did the same thing. Took the Saints cup for herself and gave me a different one.”

  His eyes snapped up. “Mona came over? Did she say anything to you?” Reggie’s mama was old fashioned. The kind who would see him dating a white girl as a betrayal of his family and the whole neighborhood.

  Andra glanced away, pushing a stray strand of hair back over her ear. “I just thought the cup thing was weird. That’s all.”

  That wasn’t an answer at all, which meant whatever Mona had said, it probably hadn’t been kind.

  “Come over here.” LJ scooted back to straddle the bench, crooking a finger to beckon her closer. His chest swelled a little bit when she didn’t hesitate, kicking a leg over and sitting down so their knees touched. “You’re my girl,” he whispered, and touched the end of her nose. “You can have any cup in my house. You got that?”

  Her eyes warmed, and she poked him in the side. “If I’m your girl, then stop running away from me every time you get mad.”

  “I’m trying. I just don’t quite get it.”

  “Get what? Communication?”

  He picked up her wrists, cupping them in his hands. “I guess I don’t get how I keep triggering those attacks if you’re not afraid of me.”

  “I told you, I don’t control those. It’s just a second of anything that’s like the kidnapping, and then I’m just gone.”

  She was right. She’d said it before. But maybe he just hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to listen. Thinking about it now, he realized there were a lot of things about himself he couldn’t control, either.

  He skimmed his thumbs over her wrists. “You know, when it rains, I can’t sleep. If the wind is blowing, I get twitchy, anxious. There have been times during hurricane season when I got so drunk I couldn’t even stand up, so I didn’t have to hear the wind.”

  The way she’d hit the floor during that very first panic attack . . . it reminded him of something he hadn’t thought about in years.

  “When I was about nineteen,” he said slowly, “there was a car crash.”

  Andra’s breath hitched, but he shook his head, not looking up from their hands.

  “I wasn’t in it. I was just walking along the street, and the crash was so loud. Just like the levee breaking. I fell down, and for a second I was drowning on dry ground.”

  She rubbed her thumb softly over his hand and didn’t interrupt. He had planned on stopping there, but now he heard the embarrassing words spilling out, stuff he’d never told a girl before.

  “I was balled up on the sidewalk, hands over my head. This lady half my size helped me up. Dusted me off, didn’t say a word. She must have been in Katrina, too. She knew.”

  Andra lifted his hand, leaving a kiss just above a raw place where he’d scraped off the skin on the pavement today. “I can deal with the attacks, you know. Have been for years now. But what I hate is that even now, when I’m here in your home, you won’t let me in. That you’re suddenly afraid to touch me.”

  He stole his hand back from her and tipped her chin up with one knuckle, smiling the way only she made him smile: with his whole chest and all his heart. “I’m not afraid of you, Cassandra Lawler.”

  “Prove it.” She reached down and pulled her shirt up and over her head.

  Twenty-nine

  LJ got up and closed the shed door before any of his neighbors could see inside. “Taking off your shirt in public is not the way to keep me from getting in fights, Rodeo Queen.”

  Even as he teased her, he couldn’t help the smile tugging up the corners of his mouth, because he loved the brave, unequivocal way she’d chosen to show him that she trusted him. That she welcomed his touch even on a day like today, when all his rough edges were showing.

  By the time he turned around, she had her bra off, too. Her breasts were small and stood out pertly, capped with pale-pink nipples that reminded him of every dirty thought he’d had in the last ten years. He went hard so fast it almost hurt.

  She reached into his shorts.

  His eyes widened as she gripped the base of his cock in one hand and shoved the elastic waistband down out of her way with the other. It had been way too hot today to wear anything under his shorts, and he was so, so glad.

  “Uh, oh God . . .” He blinked.

  Andra smiled, her face lightening. She explored all the way up to his tip before she trickled her fingertips back to the base. “So that’s what it takes to finally knock you speechless. I’d wondered.”

  She gave him a tentative squeeze. The pleasure expanded into the base of his spine with an itching pressure that wanted to thrust.

  “I gotta sit down,” he muttered, feeling behind him for the weight bench and then sitting down with one leg on each side. Her eyes were warm and soft when she looked at him, and that was half of what was making it hard to stay on his feet.

  He’d always hated people being afraid of him, but no one’s trust had ever meant as much as hers. She looked at him like she saw something better than everyone else was seeing. Like he was something better.

  She came with him as he sank down, finding a spot on her knees right in front of the bench. That position alone was enough to make his head melt into wordless, devious fantasy. A drop of moisture beaded at his tip, a reminder of the control that was already slipping away from him. All he could do was stare at her breasts, those gorgeous, perfect—holy shit, he was being such a selfish idiot right now.

 
He took Andra by the arms and lifted her. The elastic of his shorts dug into his balls, but as soon as he had her straddling his lap, he didn’t give a shit about that anymore. She was centered right over him with heat bleeding through the seam of her shorts and all over his bare cock.

  Before he could think better of it, his hips surged upward in a thoughtless movement. Andra gasped, rocking herself against his dick in tiny, jerky movements like she wasn’t paying attention to anything except how much she liked it. His eyes rolled back beneath his lids, and he clamped his teeth together to keep from shouting. The denim of her shorts chafed his skin, but he would have died twice before he’d have complained.

  She hung on to his neck, breathing in shallow little pants as she rode him. Judging by the sound of it, she was getting close on that alone. Thank Christ, because he was about to come all over his own stomach just watching her. He’d been so afraid to do more than kiss her since that first time in her bedroom, and all along, she must have been wanting this as badly as he was.

  All he’d thought of in the beginning was that he didn’t want her to be lonely. Then he’d hoped he could just make her smile. He could hardly conceive of the idea that she’d followed him halfway across the country, into this dingy little shed, and after seeing all that, still she craved more of him.

  This time when she touched him, he did groan, way down deep in his chest. Andra whimpered as if she liked the sound.

  He opened his eyes, and her breasts were right there. He ducked his head to her. Her skin tasted faintly of salt, and her nipple was a hard nub rubbing against the texture of his tongue. He curled the tip of his tongue to tickle her with it, his ears drinking the tiny, broken sounds she made.

  “LJ,” she whimpered.

  He liked the sound of that, really a lot. She arched her back, and he ducked his head to her other nipple, exploring its sensitivity until he dragged a full, throaty moan from her. She rode him so hard the muscles in her bottom clenched against his thighs with every thrust, and his dick was starting to hurt from the scrape of fabric. It did something beautiful inside his chest to see her worked up like this over him.