Beautiful Girl

by Shiloh Walker

  Her green eyes were glowing with fury and pain, her mouth twisted as she snarled, “She told me to stop telling such unbecoming lies.”

  Then the dam broke. She started to cry, her entire body shuddering with the force of the sobs racking her and Blake stood there, helpless. She burrowed against him and he wrapped his arms around her as he silently damned Louisa and William Sanders into the lowest level of hell.

  It went beyond his understanding, a mother accusing her daughter of something like that. The hideous thing though, he could picture Louisa doing just that. Unbecoming lies. Blake wanted to strangle them. The both of them, Louisa for being so cold and callous. Sanders for being a perverted monster. His gut knotted with shame as he realized that he had been living in a town with people capable of such cruelty and he’d never realized it. He hadn’t ever cared for Louisa or William Sanders but he hadn’t thought either of them were much more than self-righteous, self important idiots.

  Sanders was a child-rapist. But he wasn’t sure what was worse—the child rapist or the woman who had allowed it to happen and never did anything to stop it. The woman who accused her own daughter of lying about something so horrifying.

  Del’s body shuddered in his arms and he smoothed a hand down her back and murmured to her. He didn’t even know what he said. All he knew was that he wanted her tears to stop, wanted to do something to ease the pain inside her.

  She burrowed in closer and Blake finally lifted her in his arms and settled down on the floor, his back to the door, legs sprawled in front of him. Del lay awkwardly in his lap and he shifted her around just a little, sliding his arm under her knees and cradling her against him. She continued to cry, crying until her tears soaked his shirt and his arms went numb and still he held her.

  When the tears finally stopped, Del tipped her head back to stare at him, her eyes gleaming and her lashes spiky from the tears. Her lids were swollen, her face splotchy from the tears and she was still the most beautiful woman he knew. She always had been—Blake knew in that moment, she always would be. Even when she was ninety-years old and needed a damned cane to walk around, one look at her would hit him like a punch in the gut, hard, fast and breath-stealing.

  Her lashes lowered over her eyes and her cheeks turned pink with a blush. She pushed against him. He figured letting her go was about as easy as it would be to cut his arm off, but he did it. Even though doing so made him ache inside.

  Del knew that when her head cleared enough, she was going to be humiliated that she had broken down like that. In front of Blake, of all people. Right now, she was too tired. Her throat was raw from the crying jag and she reached for the coke Blake had given her when they had first come in. It was barely cool when she took a drink. How long had she been crying?

  She hadn’t ever cried like that. She flicked a glance over at Blake and murmured, “Sorry.”

  His brows dropped low over his eyes. He was irritated—it was obvious even before he said anything. “Sorry for what?”

  Restless, she shrugged. “Breaking down like that. I—”

  His hands came down on her shoulders. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, she lifted her eyes and met his gaze. “You’re entitled to a few tears, Del. Don’t apologize for it.” His hands tightened and he looked like he wanted to say something else but then he let go and just stepped away. “So this is why you left? Did your mom send you away to keep you quiet or what?”

  The mention of her mother was enough to clear the fog in her brain. With a snort, Del said, “No, although I bet she would have tried that if I had stayed.” She squared her shoulders and braced herself to finish it. She hadn’t even touched on the worst of it. “I ran away, Blake. I took whatever I could get my hands on from the manor, whatever I could sell, and I ran. The money didn’t last too long and I ended up living wherever I could. Social services picked me up and I was in the system for a few months. I ran away from the lady they put me with, I got hooked on drugs, I lied, cheated, stole, whatever I had to do to get by. I never graduated from high school. I was twenty before I got my GED and I did that from a rehab facility.”

  Unable to look at him any more, she looked down at her wrists and slowly tugged up one sleeve. She traced her index finger down the thin, raised surface of one of the scars. “I’d tried to kill myself a couple of times and always chickened out. This time, I almost succeeded but somebody found me. I ended up in the hospital.”

  From under her lashes, she saw him reach for her and she held herself still. Long tanned fingers wrapped around her wrist and she found herself staring, mesmerized, as he lifted it up and pressed his lips to the scars. “You look like you expect me to be disgusted,” he murmured. He reached for her other wrist and kissed the scars there as well.

  He let go of her but he didn’t move away. Instead, he moved closer and Del froze as he lifted a hand to cup her face. His lips touched hers, slow and gentle. Del’s breath lodged in her throat but he didn’t do anything more than that light, soft touch.

  Del blinked, a little dazed as he lifted his head to stare at her. “Why did you tell me?”

  She swallowed past the knot in her throat. She didn’t know how to explain that. Her voice was rusty and hoarse as she answered, “I don’t know.”

  Slowly, she pulled away. She headed for the door, opened it. Then she paused. Without looking at him, she said, “Maybe I didn’t want you to keep thinking I ran away from you. I never meant to hurt you, Blake. I never meant to hurt anybody.”

  She would have left then, but Blake moved to the door. He laid a hand over it, pressing just enough to keep her from slipping out. He combed his fingers through her hair, brushed it away from her neck. His mouth grazed her ear, his voice a soft whisper. “I never got over you, Del. All these years, I thought maybe I could. I knew that I should. But I never did.”

  Chapter Five

  I never got over you.

  Del wished he hadn’t said that. If she wasn’t already messed up enough. It was damned unsettling to realize that she hadn’t ever dealt with things. The past four or five years, she thought she’d come to grips with it. Thought she’d dealt with what William Sanders had done, and the insults her mother piled on top of that particular injury.

  She hadn’t, though.

  She slowed down by Beaumont & Beaumont and almost pulled into one of the street-side parking slots. But then she saw the sleek, black Beemer in front of it and pressed on the gas. She hadn’t seen her mother but Louisa never drove anything other than a black BMW and Del wasn’t about to deal with that particular can of worms on top of everything else.

  So instead of going to see what Beaumont Junior wanted, Del pointed her car in the direction of the lake. She’d drive down there and sit by the lake. It used to work. Maybe it still would. As she turned off Main Street onto the two lane highway that led out of town, she dug her phone out of the purse and dialed the lawyer’s phone number from memory. It went to straight to voice mail. The recorded voice sounded vaguely familiar and Del tried to place it without success. Man—voice mail in Prescott. Times really had changed around here. It was around lunch time but ten years ago, either the phone went to a plain old answering machine or it wasn’t answered. No voice mail.

  She left a message with her cell number. Del was starting to think she might hang around a few more days, see if she could put some of her demons to rest before heading back to Cincinnati. God knew she had plenty of personal time coming her way. With that thought in mind, after she disconnected from the voice mail, she called her boss before she could talk herself out of it.

  “Damn.”

  Over the pounding of her heart and the rattle of the chain, Del hadn’t heard the door open. She spun around, hands lifted in defense. When she saw Blake standing there, she lowered them. She sucked in air and jerked the gloves off and tossed them on the floor.

  The heavy bag was still swinging back and forth and automatically, she reached out and laid a hand on it. “Hello, Blake.”

  He sauntered into
the garage and circled around her. “You picked up some moves, didn’t you, Deedee? You pounding on anybody in particular or just working up a sweat?”

  “Del,” she corrected automatically. He moved closer and it seemed as though the big garage seemed to shrink, closing in around her. Her face heated as she remembered how she had broken down in front of him. She hadn’t thought about it at the time, but later, down at the lake, Del realized the entire time she’d been crying, he had been holding her and she hadn’t once felt afraid.

  Blake moved closer and despite herself, Del felt that familiar panic rear its ugly head and she battled it back down. Blake wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that, knew it enough so that she really didn’t feel that threatened even when he closed in on her personal space, eliminating more distance between them.

  He brushed a damp strand of hair back from her face, his fingers lingering on the curve of her neck. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” Inanely, she asked, “You?”

  A faint grin came and went on his face and he drawled, “Oh, I’m right as rain, ma’am.” His lids drooped, shielding his gaze, but there was no mistaking the lazy, lambent look in his eyes. She felt frozen in place as he looked down at her. He seemed to take in every single thing about her, seeing beyond the too-loose pants, the form-fitting shirt and drab brown braids. Those eyes of his had always seen too deep. He saw so much of her and Del hated it. Hated how he made her feel. These yearning, needy feelings were just a disaster waiting to happen. She’d gone twelve years not letting anybody get too close, physically and emotionally. Even if she had finally admitted to herself that she was far from okay, she didn’t know if she was ready to risk letting somebody get close again.

  Especially not Blake. He had an advantage over most, considering he’d been her first, and only, love. She’d always figured she’d romanticized her memories of him but looking at him, she had to wonder.

  He was still so ridiculously good-looking, more so now than he had been in high school. Those fine, chiseled features of his belonged in Hollywood, not in Prescott, Tennessee, a small town in the middle of nowhere. Impossibly blue eyes and a mouth she could still remember feeling against hers. She had the odd urge to reach up and pull off the black cloth covering his head. Plain and simple, she wanted to reach out and touch him.

  Del hadn’t wanted to touch anybody in so damn long. And it scared the hell out of her.

  Maybe it’s time you did…

  That voice seemed to come from all those wishful, wistful yearnings. Common sense told her something else. Carefully, Del edged around him, circling away without really appearing to run. “Do you need something, Blake?”

  He shrugged, still moving forward with that slow, lazy grace. Gently, he asked, “Are you afraid of me, Del?”

  Disgusted with herself, she planted her feet and met his gaze levelly. “Of you? Not exactly.” She shrugged her shoulders and admitted, “Of men in general? Yeah.”

  He nodded and murmured, “I get that. What if I want to touch you? Should I ask? Should I not bother? If I told you that I wanted to kiss you, would you tell me to get back in my car and just leave you the hell alone?”

  Fear had her shaking. Her voice was almost non-existent and she couldn’t decide who was more surprised when she said, “No.”

  Blake’s eyes darkened and he closed the distance between them and dipped his head. He pressed his mouth to hers, keeping the touch light and gentle. He gave her plenty of room to pull away and she was the one who deepened the kiss. She rose on her toes and pressed her mouth against his with a little more pressure.

  Del sighed against his lips and that soft, hungry, female sound was sheer torture. At the same time, it was sheer bliss. Blake wanted nothing more than to grab her and hold her tight against him, taking the kiss deeper, harder. He was greedy for the taste of her and would have done almost anything just to get it, but he didn’t do anything. He just stood there and let her kiss him. She licked his lower lip and he felt the blood drain out of his head and straight down to his dick.

  It was heaven.

  It was hell.

  Her hands came up to his shoulders and fisted in his shirt and still Blake wouldn’t let himself touch her. His restraint was rewarded when she stroked her tongue along his lips and when he opened his mouth, she took the slow, shy caress a little bit deeper. And finally—finally he could taste her. Sunshine, sweetness and heat, it was like a drug, even that small taste and all he wanted was more.

  Instead, he lifted his head and made himself ease back. Del’s eyes were closed but when he retreated, her lashes lifted and he found himself staring into foggy, almost dazed green eyes. She swayed closer and this time when she touched him, he reached up and covered her hand with his, pressing it flat so that she could feel the pounding of his heart under her touch.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  A slow smile curled her lips and she made a soft humming sound under her breath in response. “You know,” she whispered, her voice all husky and rough, the way a woman sounded in the morning after a long night of hot, lazy sex. “I dreamed about you last night.”

  If he was a smart man, he’d get a little bit of distance between them, Blake thought. A little bit of distance so he could try to cool the fire in his gut because it was going to eat him alive. He didn’t move an inch. “What kind of dream?”

  Another one of those soft, sexy humming sounds and then Del leaned in closer, closer so he could feel all those hot, lush curves. “This kind.” He could feel his grip on self control getting more and more tenuous. He clung to it with a sweaty, slippery grip and he wasn’t sure how long he could take this.

  Then Del slid her arms around his neck and slanted her mouth over his. She kissed him, hard and deep, like she was as greedy as he was. It wasn’t possible, Blake didn’t think, but there was no mistaking the hunger in her kiss or the way she pressed her body against his. He could feel her breasts against his chest, the soft weight pressing flat, her nipples hard.

  It was sweet, sweet torture and Blake knew he’d take it as long as he had to, so long as she didn’t stop and he didn’t scare her. Still, he had to touch her though. Just a little.

  He brought one hand up, keeping the other fisted at his side. The short tank she wore had ridden up and when he laid his hand on her side, he touched bare, damp flesh. Involuntarily, he rolled his hips forward and for a brief second, he felt her against him. Her cotton pants clung like a second skin and he could feel her, all heat and softness. His hand flexed and he pumped against her a second time and then she went stiff against him.

  She tore her mouth away from his and backed away. Her breath wheezed out of her lungs and her pupils were so damn big, the black almost eclipsed the soft green of her irises. That dazed, drugged hunger was gone and in its place, a naked fear.

  “Del—” He started to reach for her, cussing himself ten different ways to Sunday as he stared at her pale face.

  She shook her head. “Don’t apologize, Blake.” She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. When she looked back at him, she didn’t look so terrified, but the hungry woman from seconds ago was gone. “Please don’t apologize.”

  “I scared you. Shit. I'm…”

  “Don't say you're sorry,” Del said quietly. “And you didn't scare me. At least, not you in particular. I don't want you to be sorry—I'm not.”

  He watched as she touched her lips. She looked at him and whispered, “You have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve been able to let anybody do that.” Then she laughed. “Well, maybe you do. The last time I allowed anybody get that close was that last day at the lake.”

  Shit. Blake didn’t know if he was elated to hear that or terrified. Elated because it could maybe, just maybe, mean that she hadn’t ever gotten over him either. Terrified for a couple of reasons. If he pushed too hard and screwed this up, he was going to leave even more scars on her and she had more than enough. Terrified because maybe what he had to offer her wasn’t what she needed.
Terrified that he’d scare her.

  A smile flirted with her lips, like she knew what he was thinking. “Don’t look so worried, Blake.”

  He felt completely helpless and like a total ass. “I scared you.”

  Del started to shake her head and then she stopped herself. “Yeah. A little. Maybe more than a little.” She blew out a breath. “This isn’t easy, you have to know that.”

  “I do.” He took one slow step towards her, and then another. She watched him the same way a rabbit would watch a hawk, but she didn’t pull away when he reached up to brush her hair back from her face.

  She turned her face into his hand and pressed her lips against him. A knot lodged itself somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, making it damn near impossible to breathe as he stared at her. “So are you going to be okay if I want to do that again?” he asked.

  Del’s smile was there and gone, fast and fleeting. “Absolutely, I’m okay if you want to do it again.” Then her face sobered. “But I come with a hell of a lot of baggage and even if I do want to try and move past this, I don’t know if I’m ready for any kind of relationship. Even a casual one might be out of the question for me. I just don’t know.”

  He cupped her chin in his palm and arched her face up, staring into her eyes. “I’ve never felt anything remotely casual for you, Del.” When he kissed her this time, he kept his eyes open, watching her face. He kept the contact light and soft and then he stepped away. “I’m willing to take this as slow as you need, Del. I’ll be patient and wait until you’re ready. Only thing I’m not willing to do is let you walk away from me again. So if that’s going to happen, maybe you’d better go ahead and do it now before this goes any farther.”

  Del cocked a brow at him. There was a faint ghost of her former confidence when she replied, “I’m not walking anywhere right now.”