by J. S. Scott
I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t true. That I had plenty of fun, and he was just being mean.
Before I could say anything, there was a sudden look of shock on his face—and then Jessie was gone, falling through the ice. I screamed out his name and started to run towards him as he broke through to the surface, scrambling to try and get some sort of hold so he could pull himself out. Yet there was nothing for him to hold onto… no way to pull himself out. Each time he tried, another chunk of ice broke off.
I had to reach him but he was still so far away. Someone else calling to us… help was on its way. I quickly waved them down, and then turned back to run to Jessie, when the ice gave out from under my feet.
The icy cold water seized my lungs and stole my breath as I plunged into the deep dark lake, stealing my scream. I struggled to survive, struggled to get to the surface, kicking with all my might. I managed to steal a desperate breath as I broke through to the surface, my limbs flailing… and then the darkness of the lake was swallowing me whole once again, the fight going out of me as I ran out of breath…
The next thing I knew, strong arms were pulling me out of the water, just enough for me to finally catch my breath, my rescuer sprawled out on the ice as he held onto me, while others tried to make their way to us safely, so they could pull us to the shore.
I tried to scream out to Jessie… tried to tell them to leave me and go help my brother… but my words were frozen in my throat.
And my brother? My brother was gone.
It was still early in the morning, but staying in bed and trying to sleep in was pointless when sleep would only lead to more nightmares. And any sleep I did get wasn’t the kind that would actually put a dent in my exhaustion. Instead it was fraught with tossing and turning as my mind raced.
I padded out into the kitchen, feeling miserable after my restless night. Though I should be surprised to find that Gavin was already up at such an early hour, I was starting to think he slept even less than I did.
“Sweetness… what are you doing up already? You should be sleeping. The sun’s still hours from rising.” He set aside his laptop and patted the spot on the sofa next to him.
I sat down by Gavin’s side and curled up against him, taking comfort in the peaceful calm his strong arms afforded, grateful that I now had him in my life. With his arms draped around my shoulders, he enveloped me in their safety as I breathed in his scent, one deep breath after another, a calm slowly settling over me as he worked a magic he probably didn’t even know he could wield.
“What’s wrong, love? Something’s clearly bothering you.” He already knew me so well. Better than even my parents did after a lifetime of living with me. Though maybe that had more to do with the fact that Gavin actually cared about me, and my parents… my parents hadn’t.
I somehow managed a smile as I looked up into his bright blue eyes. “It’s nothing. I think it was being in a new place… a new bed. Usually it takes me a few nights to adjust. Though maybe… if I had company, I might sleep better.”
He groaned out loud, making me laugh. “Don’t tease me, girl. I’m trying to be good here—and you’re making it damn hard.”
I leaned into him, whispering in his ear. “Then maybe being good is overrated.”
CHAPTER 17
Gavin
I’d been exposed to a lot of temptation in my life, but Charlie was the only one that I wouldn’t and couldn’t indulge in.
Holy fuck!
She was a virgin. A beautiful innocence that I wanted nothing more than to claim as mine.
Our chemistry was undeniable, but the problem was, I really liked her, respected her for the intelligent, caring woman that she was. A guy didn’t take advantage of that, especially not one who wasn’t the least bit worthy of being the first man to be with her.
Damn! Why did that idea make me want to scoop her up and drag her to a cave somewhere?
I couldn’t take her, but I sure as hell didn’t want another guy touching her, either.
“You know I want you. But I can’t, Charlie. As much as I’d like to, it’s not possible. There are too many things you don’t know about me.” I was afraid if she knew the truth, she’d never look at me again the way she was right now.
She thought I was some kind of hero, and she couldn’t be more misinformed.
Charlie put a comforting hand on my arm, and that simple touch almost broke me. I squeezed her more tightly in my arms, knowing that I could never have anything more than her body cuddled sweetly against mine.
“Then tell me, Gavin. There’s nothing you could ever say that would change my mind. I’m not a virgin because I want to be, or because I’ve been saving myself. I’ve just never felt this kind of attraction before. You’re the only one who makes me feel this way,” she confided breathlessly.
Shit! Shit! Shit! I needed to move away from her, but I couldn’t. The only way I was moving is if I shocked her into moving someplace else.
Mine! The thought of her pulling away, rejecting me, made my gut ache.
“You want to know about my past? You want to know the real me?” I growled.
“I already know you,” she answered. “But would I like to know what’s bothering you? Yes.”
I stared straight ahead at the wall, not wanting to see her look of disappointment while I spoke. “I grew up hard,” I shared. “My siblings and I never had a childhood. We spent most of our time trying to stay alive in a world of violence while living on the wrong side of the tracks.”
“Then it’s all the more admirable that you’ve gotten to where you are in life,” she said reasonably.
I laughed, a bitter sound with no humor. “You won’t think so once you’ve heard the whole story. A lot of things happened between then and now. I was desperate for money so we could all get out of poverty. My mom was already working three jobs, but it just wasn’t enough. As the oldest, I knew I had to help, and our only chance was using my computer skills to make some cash.”
“You just did what you had to.” As always, she was trying to see the good in me, when I knew better.
“I’m a hacker, Charlie. I’ve always been a hacker, even though I was running a PC that I’d put together with salvaged parts, and I had no formal training or college. But I was good, and so I used my skills to make money. At first, it was petty stuff, but it made me enough cash to provide better for my family. Unfortunately, at the time I wasn’t sophisticated enough to cover my tracks. I’ve served two sentences for hacking. I was better at it the second time around, and it took a while for them to catch me, but I eventually got sent back to prison.”
Charlie was completely silent for a while, like it was taking some time for that information to sink in. Finally, she answered, “Did you steal from people?”
I shrugged. “Tiny amounts from tons of accounts. I never wanted to do much damage to any one person. But eventually I was caught.”
“You haven’t gone back again?”
I shook my head. “I met Kane the second time I was in prison. We bonded together for protection at first, though we quickly learned we could trust each other. He was in for manslaughter... Things went wrong when he tried to protect his younger brother from thugs.”
“What happened after that?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“Kane and I finally grew up and went legit. Well, as honest as a hacker can be. When we were both out, we founded our company. It’s taken years for us to get where we are, but we’re a great team.”
“Gavin, it’s not a crime to try to support your family. Desperate times sometimes require desperate behavior. You’ve paid for what you did. Why can’t you give yourself credit for going straight?” She threaded her fingers through my hair and stroked the locks to comfort me.
“Don’t you get it? Because what I did was wrong, and I still bend the rules. It’s just usually being done trying to as
sist the authorities now.”
“Like trying to eliminate the atrocities that are happening on the dark web?”
“Some of it,” I grumbled.
“I think knowing where you came from makes me admire you even more,” she mused. “I’ve never had to worry about where my next meal was coming from. My physical needs were taken care of.” She laid her head on my chest with a trust that nearly made me come undone.
I knew what Charlie was saying was true. She obviously came from a much wealthier background than I did, but I had a feeling she had problems just as serious as my own.
“I was branded a criminal, Charlie. And I always will be. No matter what happened after those prison stints, I’m still a convict. You understand why I can’t sleep with you? I’m a hardened bastard.”
“Maybe I like men with character,” she said defensively. “It doesn’t matter that you fell, it just matters that you rose up again to fight in a better way.”
“It isn’t just that,” I rumbled irritably. “Shit happens in prison, things that stay with a person forever. Situations and regrets I can never change.”
She scooted closer to me. “Just tell me, Gavin.”
I blew out a deep breath. “Friendships and alliances are formed in prisons… prison gangs. Kane and I stuck together because the last thing we wanted was to have to deal with crazy murderers and career criminals. Neither of us was in for long. We just needed to survive long enough to get the hell out of there. And when we did get out, we were determined to change our lives for the better. We stuck together to keep the gangs off our backs. But being two men who were willing to scrap wasn’t always enough. Their gangs were bigger, and more powerful. Our release dates were pretty close, and we knew we just had to get through a few more months when something bad happened. Really bad.”
Tormented visions flashed across my mind and I cringed as I relived what I’d done to Kane. My gut rolled as guilt flooded over me.
“What happened, Gavin?” She gave my hand a squeeze, letting me know it was okay… that she’d be there for me.
“There was one gang in particular that hated us. They knew the best way to weaken us was to turn us against each other—except whatever they’d tried hadn’t worked. It just made us stronger, bonded us closer. Until one of them came up with the most twisted and sadistic idea.”
“What did they do?”
“They managed to drug us and then caught us in an ambush. I think Kane and I both figured we were dead because we were hopelessly fucked up from the drugs—the ecstasy they’d slipped into our food. The bastards had knives and nothing to lose, since they were lifers. Kane and I were both strung out on drugs and adrenaline.”
I stopped, my breathing ragged as I tried to gather my courage to tell Charlie my secret, something I’d never discussed with anybody except Kane.
“It’s okay, Gavin. I could never hate you,” she reassured me.
“Oh yeah, you could,” I argued. “But nobody will ever hate me as much as I hate myself. What I did that day fucking haunts me.”
“Did they hurt Kane?” she guessed.
“They beat the crap out of both of us,” I explained. “I was so high on the drugs they’d slipped us that it didn’t matter. I couldn’t tell right from wrong, and I hated the fact that I had no control to fight.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Charlie protested.
“Actually, the worst part of it was my fault. I may have been forced, but I should have died before I did what they made me do to my best friend.”
“Tell me,” she pleaded.
“After they beat us up, they insisted that I fuck Kane. They knew it’d be the best way to make us hate each other. Between the knives to our throats, and being so screwed up on the ecstasy, I did it. I did the most horrible thing I can think of, Charlie. I raped my best friend.”
CHAPTER 18
Charlie
My heart clenched, the pain in my chest unbearable as I listened to Gavin’s confession. I was momentarily shocked. I couldn’t deny that I was surprised by what had occurred. But it wasn’t because it happened. I was appalled that it could happen in a prison where guards would generally be everywhere.
I cuddled closer to him, my heart breaking for the guilt and pain it must have costed him to live with what he’d done to Kane. He was still tormented, still locked in another kind of prison that he’d never managed to escape.
“Where the hell were the guards?” I asked furiously.
“They got paid off to be elsewhere. Happens more often than you’d think. Luckily, someone finally came through before the assholes could slice us up or kill us.”
His big body shuddered, and I knew his pain was still there. He was still suffering.
“What happened with Kane?”
I couldn’t think of a more horrible position to be in than to have to hurt a friend just to stay alive.
“I hurt him,” Gavin mumbled. “Both physically and mentally. But he got over it. He understood why it happened, and didn’t blame me. But it still took us a while to get back to the way we were before it happened. Kane tells me all the time that I need to get over my guilt, and that it wasn’t my fault. He’s moved on. I’ve tried, but I just don’t think I can ever get past the fact that I betrayed him that way. If I hadn’t been drugged out of my mind, I never could have gotten it up enough to even have it happen.”
“He forgave you, Gavin. I think it’s time for you to forgive yourself. Kane’s right. It wasn’t your fault. And I think everybody you know, including me, is glad that you’re still alive.” Just the thought of him being killed made my blood run cold.
“Kane’s married now, and happy. I don’t think he really thinks much about his past,” I told her. “He’s in a different place.”
“He’s moved on,” I said empathetically. “You need to move on, too. Your life is different now, and you had no control over what happened to you and Kane.”
“It’s not that simple,” he said huskily. “Those memories… they still haunt me—a lot.”
“Maybe you need to replace them with something good,” I suggested.
“Like?”
“Like taking me to bed and fucking me until I can’t walk tomorrow,” I told him as I lifted my head to look into his pain-filled eyes.
A slight smile formed on his lips. “You’re a virgin. What do you know about that?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Just because I’ve never had sex, doesn’t mean I live in a bubble.”
Gavin speared his hands into my hair, and bore a hole into my face with his intense gaze. “It’s not that I don’t want you, Charlie. I think I’ve wanted to fuck you from the moment we first met. But I’m not the sort of man you need in your life—especially not your first time around. But I will take you to bed. You still look tired.”
I squealed as he swung me up into his arms and rose off the couch. He carried me into the dim light of his bedroom, pulled the covers back and plopped me into the middle of his bed.
My breath caught as he stripped down to his boxer briefs, my eyes transfixed by his perfectly sculpted body. Gavin was toned, and I wanted to reach out and trace each delineated muscle with my tongue. He was perfectly, gorgeously made.
He didn’t seem to have a single body issue, and he dropped each item of clothing on the floor carelessly until he finally climbed into bed dressed only in his underwear, and then reached out to wrap his arms around me. He covered us both with the sheet and comforter.
My head rested on his shoulder, and I felt safer than I ever had in my entire life.
“Comfortable?” he asked in a deep baritone.
“Yes.” I was comfortable, but I could also feel the hard outline of his cock as our bodies melted together.
“Good. Then sleep,” he demanded. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here to protect you.”
&
nbsp; I already knew that. Deep in my soul, I’d always believed Gavin wanted nothing more than to keep me from harm. “Nothing you said tonight makes me feel any differently,” I shared in a whisper next to his ear.
“It should,” he answered in a coarse voice. “Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?”
“Not with you,” I answered as my eyes closed. “I don’t need it. You have enough protective instincts for both of us.”
“You really don’t think of me as an asshole because I was forced to rape my best friend?” There was a certain vulnerability in Gavin’s voice that made me try to snuggle closer to him.
“No. Neither of you had any choice, short of ending up dead. You’re a survivor, Gavin. I hate what you went through, and I can imagine the guilt you’ve harbored over the incident. But you need to let it go.” There was no way I wanted to see him suffer anymore over something he couldn’t control.
He stroked my hair absently as he said, “You never cease to surprise me, Charlie. Most women would have flipped out over my past.”
I yawned. “I guess I’m not most women. I can’t understand how anybody could blame you for what happened.”
“Many would,” he replied.
“I still want you. Maybe now more than ever.” I wanted to be with Gavin more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my life.
“I want you, too. But it’s not going to happen,” he answered in a guttural tone as he gave me a playful slap on the ass. “Now go to sleep.”
I sighed. “I’m not tired.”
“Liar,” he scolded.
“I’m still trying to get over the fact that I offered somebody my body for the first time in my life, and he turned me down.”
Gavin put his forehead against mine. “I’m not turning you down. Jesus, Charlie, I’d give my right nut to be with you right now. But I can’t.”
I knew he wasn’t lying. I heard the naked desire in his voice. “What happened in the past doesn’t matter to me,” I argued.