Damage Me (Crystal Gulf Book 2)

by Shana Vanterpool

  She looked pissed for a second, and then she looked at me. “Can she take me?”

  My heart sunk. I looked from Dylan, who thought the entire thing was either painful or hilarious, to Aubrey, who was looking at me with her sweet, beautiful face. Why horses? “I don’t mind, but I haven’t ridden before.”

  “I’ll be giving lessons,” someone assured me.

  I looked up to find a man. Shaggy, fair hair, sky blue eyes, and a thick country accent. His jeans were tight, and his white tank top hugged his abs.

  He grinned down at me, giving me a wink. “The name’s Gage if you’re interested.”

  “Interested in what?”

  “Riding lessons for you and the little one. What do you say?” He dropped to his haunches, putting him at Aubrey’s eye level.

  “Yay!” Aubrey tugged on Dylan’s shorts. “Cool, huh, Daddy?”

  “Yeah, it’s real cool.”

  I looked at him to find his eyes were cold, hard stones as they appraised Gage. He looked larger somehow. Less like a man being held up by crutches, and more like a man being held back by crutches. I bit my lip fearfully. I understood that look. The consuming rage, the overwhelming threat of someone moving in on your safe zone, and the feeling like you couldn’t breathe through the fury. His reaction confused me. So it was acceptable for Dylan to be jealous, but I wasn’t allowed? He could feel strongly, but I was confined to one emotion? I had never dealt with a man before, at least not in an intimate capacity. I wasn’t simply out of my element; I was out of everything.

  “Ready?” Gage asked, holding out his hand to me.

  I didn’t know what to do. I could feel Dylan’s gaze on me like heavy heated hands. Gage was offering help. Gage could be a Zane. He could a monster, leading me to more pain. I didn’t want his hand. I didn’t want any man’s hand but Dylan’s. But Aubrey was bouncing with excitement. Having no choice, I gave in, and he pulled me easily to my feet. He didn’t let my hand go, and instead used it to lead me over to a large snuffling four-legged beast that I swore looked at me like I was about to regret the day I gave in to ride him.

  “First things first,” Gage said, tapping the saddle. “Put your foot in the stirrup and hoist yourself up. Don’t hesitate. Up and on.”

  I watched Stacey, Harley’s little cousin, trotting happily on the back of a horse as another instructor lead them slowly around the corral. If she could do it, I supposed there was no excuse. As Gage gave Aubrey the rules, I took a deep breath, grabbed the top of the saddle and put my foot in the stirrup. With a squeak, I settled on the horse. Once atop a bolt of unease shot through me. I was high, on the back of an animal, who may or may not want to buck me off and crush me.

  “My turn!” Aubrey yelped.

  Gage picked her up and settled her down in front of me, and then grabbed two helmets for us both, waiting for us to strap them on. “Hold her. I’ll lead you both around.”

  I wrapped my arms tightly around her little body. She held my hands, bouncing happily.

  “Ready?” he checked.

  “Yes!”’

  “No,” I admitted. “But go ahead.”

  Gage laughed and clucked under his tongue. The beast took a step. I held Aubrey tighter.

  “Ouch,” she complained.

  “Sorry.” I loosened my hold.

  I focused on not barfing as Gage led us around. The horse snorted, making Aubrey giggle. I felt like I was in a different universe. Not an hour ago I was on the kitchen floor being drug down by this pressure on my chest. Now I was listening to a child laugh as she had the time of her life. The separation between my thoughts and reality were starting to thin. I wondered when the last time was I’d been content with my own thoughts, and if it were possible to return.

  On one go around we passed the picnic blankets. Everyone waved but Dylan. He was too busy openly trying to disembowel Gage with his eyes.

  “He your boyfriend?” Gage asked.

  “No.” My cheeks blazed.

  “Does he know that?”

  “Yes.” He wanted it that way.

  “So if I wanted to catch up with you later, you’d be up for it?” His baby blues winked at me.

  Me alone with a man I did not know? Never again. “No.”

  My tone must’ve come across harsher than I intended because Gage looked away with a nod. “Around one more time, cutie?”

  “Can we go faster?” Aubrey looked up at me, pleading.

  Is this how Mom felt when I asked for something? Like telling me no was harder than telling me yes? But instead, I did say, “yes,” when Mom quite frequently chose the opposite.

  “Come on, Belinda.” Gage patted the horse and then took off with a short jog, making Belinda the four-legged beast take off one more time around the corral.

  I practically threw myself off the horse, pausing only to help Aubrey down when it was over. I carried her over with me to the blankets.

  “Why does Daddy look mad?”

  Dylan’s face was hard stone. His jawline was tensed, and his hands were fists. It made my stomach fall. I hadn’t asked Gage to talk to me.

  “Maybe because he can’t ride.”

  “Oh,” she said, as if that made perfect sense to her.

  When we got close I set her down. She took off, flinging her little arms around him. His tenseness lessened slightly, but it sprung right back when I sat beside him.

  “The butterfly’s back.” He pointed.

  She spied it, and with a shriek took off for the butterfly, leaving me alone with a pissed off Dylan Meyer.

  He turned his cold eyes on me. “I take it back. Rules be damned. There’s no way in hell I’m going to allow another man to look at you like that.”

  “Like what?” I breathed.

  “Like he knew how good you tasted.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m the only one who gets to taste this good girl, isn’t that right, baby?”

  I nodded senselessly, struck by how dark his eyes were, how much the anger in them looked like emotion, want—he wanted me.

  “Isn’t that right?” he repeated darkly.

  “Yes.” I closed the gap and pressed my lips to his. Aware that we weren’t alone, I withheld the part of me that wanted to tackle him, taste him, and lose myself in his touch. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone,” I whispered, kissing him once more on his full soft bottom lip. Make me forget.

  He leaned in so close his breath mixed with mine, warm and sweet, making my mouth pool with saliva. And I knew it was wrong of me, but all I wanted at that moment was to be naked with him in the guesthouse. I wanted our bodies wrapped around each other. His tongue in my mouth and his hands tainting me with their bad. I wanted Dylan Meyer to damage me, so he could help me rebuild. Maybe if I put the pieces in different spots I could figure out how to exist without remembering.

  “Do you have any idea how much I want you?” His tongue flicked at my top lip, sending a rush of heat over my body. “How badly I want to make sure you never leave?”

  I reached out and grabbed his arm, gripping his tattoos. I craved the support. “Do you have any idea how afraid I am when you do? How much the idea of you moving on without me makes me want to cling to you?”

  He laughed suddenly, a painful breathless moan. “Where would I go, Hillary? You’re the one’s who’s leaving. And that’s okay,” he assured me gruffly. “I want you to leave. I want you to get better, and remember that you are made of light, that you never fell, you were just hurting. That’s the best thing for you.”

  I was already shaking my head before he could finish, but the moment I tried to open my mouth he pulled away and ran a hand through his hair, dismissing my argument before I could deliver it. Why did he get to choose how this went? Who appointed him as master? With a huff, I crossed my legs and ignored the eyes on me. I could feel them everywhere. Couldn’t a girl pour her heart out? I rolled my eyes internally.

  “Thank you for taking Aubrey riding.”

  “Mhm.”

 
; “Don’t be like that. That’s how it was, how it is, and how it’s going to be.”

  How could a man profess something and then slam his feelings down? That had to be unfair somewhere somehow in this world. “I’m not going anywhere.” My sullen refusal was whispered harshly.

  “You won’t have a choice.”

  The toxic hole reached up and swallowed me. Having a safe place wasn’t an option. It was a requirement. I needed it. Having it and knowing I would eventually lose it was worse than my nightmares. It meant they would only be sated for a short time. Finding myself unable to breathe, I pushed to my feet and took off.

  “Hillary,” Dylan’s voice whipped out.

  I ignored him. My feet sped up. I took off for the oak trees in the distance. I ran through the property, feeling the long grass whip at my ankles. I ran from the nightmares, from the pain, from the man who could help me but would push me away. Like my dad, like my brother, like every man before him.

  When I got to the trees, I kept going until my lungs burned. I grabbed a branch low enough and hoisted myself up, climbing unthinkingly until I was so high I could see all around me. In the distance, there were stacks and stacks of hay. Beyond Harley’s property was the road that led to the highway. Below me, there was this small patch of woods. I felt so small, surrounded on all sides by life that hadn’t dreamed my dreams.

  I leaned my cheek against a large branch and watched the cars zoom by, on their way to Crystal Gulf and deeper into Texas. For such a large state I had seen so little of it. Mom like to stay confined to her one bubble, as if knowing the unknown of a place made it easier to stay put. I had never wanted out myself, having found the same sense of comfort, but all of a sudden I wanted free of this entire state. Free of the same air I’d been breathing in, the smells, the railroad tracks—I just wanted free.

  Or maybe the real thing I wanted free from was me. Inside I’d be this way no matter where I went. I could go all the way to Alaska and Zane would find me. Even in outer space with the stars as my only witness, Zane would tell them how stupid I had been, following him upstairs, drinking that beer, letting him get me into that bedroom.

  “Stupid,” I whispered.

  I was stupid.

  But as I sat there, inhaling the smell of the dried oak, I contemplated whether I had been stupid, or was the problem here really Zane’s evil. I didn’t take time out of my day to anticipate the horrible actions of a monster. That had been my mistake, but maybe berating myself for that wasn’t helping. It made me a bad guy also, and I’d learned that bad people didn’t change. I didn’t want to be this way forever, with deafening quiet and loud brains, throwing memories at me like rocks from a bully. I wanted to be me again.

  What if to be free, I had to forgive myself for making a mistake. These mistakes were keeping me ill.

  Maybe I had to accept what almost happened, understand that it didn’t, and perhaps only then would I stop living this nightmare.

  Maybe I had to forgive myself.

  Chapter Nine

  Dylan

  All these people did was eat and play.

  The Evans family shoved fried chicken into their mouths. Even Aubrey was having the time of her life eating a drumstick, grinning at me when she spotted me looking.

  She waved her leg at me. “Quack quack, Daddy!”

  I stared at her. “Chickens don’t quack.”

  She paused and thought about it, chewing contemplatively. Then she looked away from me and in exchange looked at Bach. “Quack quack!”

  Bach stared at her too. “Not happening.”

  She looked at Grandpa Evans. “Quack quack!”

  He grinned at her. “Woof.”

  She snickered, taking a huge bite of her leg in victory.

  Bach and I were the only ones who seemed less eager to fill our stomachs. I pushed my mashed potatoes around on my plate. I wanted to take Aubrey and leave. Go back to the beach house where things made sense. But that wasn’t fair. This made sense to my daughter. Horseback riding, chasing butterflies, and family dinners—this was what she deserved.

  The closest I came to horseback riding was that one time I hooked up with Plump Patricia after too many shots. The last time I chased a butterfly, I was high. I’d never eaten family dinners unless Bach and I ate together. That Aubrey had these things should be all I needed, and maybe to some degree it was. Maybe what bothered me the most was that I couldn’t give them to her. And that no matter how hard I tried, I’d be the second best thing for her.

  Maybe some things in life were the hardest to swallow because they were true regardless of whether you accepted them.

  I looked around the kitchen table, not for the first time for Hillary. If I could just look at her, see her golden hair, her good eyes, she’d make everything feel less like it was falling apart and more like it wasn’t. Somehow the rubble wasn’t as devastating with her around.

  Stabbing at my peas, I recalled the blistering rage I’d felt watching her interact with Gage, the fucking cowboy. The way he looked at my girl, the way he touched my girl, the way he acted like he could have my girl—because damn it, she was my girl. She wanted me. If I could, he’d be riding one of his horses far away with two fewer balls. However, the garbage I surrounded myself in reminded me she was only my girl for a short period of time. Any talk of later was just that, talk. This couldn’t work. Us, in a relationship, together, like I’d wanted with Harley. That wasn’t going to happen. Couldn’t happen. Even if my heart stuttered at the thought.

  What did my heart know?

  She would wake up one day and decide her time in the darkness was over. Her light was too strong like I’d known all along, and she’d shine that gold on someone with a light just as bright as hers.

  It was best we keep this right where it was. In the darkness where I rotted.

  But that didn’t stop my entire body from filling with relief when she finally came in. Or when she sat down in front of her cold plate and looked up at me, her eyes tender and guarded. And like I knew it would, the smell of my rot was gone. In its place was the scent of her lemon shampoo and the jade of her eyes. I wanted to lean down and taste her lips, lose myself in her the way I’d done this morning. She looked back at me like she wanted the same thing, yearned for it, craved nothing else but me.

  How in the hell could she want that?

  I was bad for her. Bad for myself. I was bad for everyone.

  I looked away, ignoring her soft, heartbroken sigh.

  “Bath time?” Nena announced, smiling pleasantly at all of the children. The collective grumbles made everyone laugh. “Bath time it is. Harley? Some help please?”

  “Come on you, little monsters.” She picked up Aubrey and took Stacey’s hand, leading the two away as Nena cajoled the rest.

  “So, Hillary,” Grandpa Evans spoke up. “I hear you’re in college to be a veterinarian?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  So polite, so sweet—such a fucking turn on. I wanted to hear her say that to me. “Do you want me to taste your golden pussy?” “Yes, sir.” I’d never claimed to be a gentleman. I wanted that too.

  “I’ve always been on the other end. Hope you don’t mind a hunter.”

  She cracked a smile. “My grandfather used to hunt deer. When I was little, I remember being forced to eat venison.”

  “What kind?” he asked, interested.

  “White-tailed, I believe. Mule deer are larger than the ones he had hanging up in his barn.”

  Grandpa Evans smiled appreciatively. “I’ve got some in the freezer. Maybe we’ll make steaks for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I’d like that.”

  “Coffee anyone?” Betty asked, French press in hand with a tray of mugs in the other.

  “Please,” Whitney said.

  Betty went around the table, and everyone took their coffee, but when it got to Hillary she was the only one who poured her own, giving Betty a sweet smile and a, “Thank you.” Her soft, timid replies were like short burst
s of temptation. I wanted that sweetness on my tongue. The darker my thoughts became, the more I craved a break, a chance to be lost in something that wasn’t dragging me down.

  I watched as she fixed my coffee. She didn’t look at me as she dropped spoonfuls of sugar into the dark liquid. The granules cascaded slowly, like white unblemished snow falling into black dirty filth. It made the contents better, more acceptable than it had been on its own. And when she added the cream, turning the dark into something almost light, I knew in my heart that I was in serious trouble. This wasn’t attraction. This was a temporary reprieve that would break me when it was over.

  And I would ride this ride because the time spent on it was worth the emptiness when it was over. But I would also determine when that happened. If I waited for her to end this, she’d leave me the way she found me. I had to lead this train wreck; I’d pick when we exploded.

  Run, my sweet, good girl. Stay away from me.

  “Look at me,” I ordered, keeping my voice low, because I was too selfish not to give myself what I wanted. When she did, I leaned over and pressed my lips to hers, inhaling the rich sweet taste of her breath. “Tell me right now. Yes, or no. Do you—”

  “Yes,” she blurted.

  “You didn’t even hear what I asked.”

  “Yes,” she repeated, kissing me back the same way, like she wanted to taste my tongue, my life, my damn heart. “It’s always going to be yes, Dylan. Every time.”

  The evil bastard inside of me rejoiced.

  A feeling invaded me as she returned to her coffee and ate her dinner. It was overwhelmingly comforting. It chased the shadows away. Bach and Whitney dismissed their selves, followed by the rest of the Evans family, leaving me and the angel alone.

  “They’re just going to leave their dishes here?” She bit her lip at the messy table.