by Eva Charles
“When I was a teenager,” I start at the beginning, “I had a boyfriend who was older. We were together for about six months. I was totally inexperienced, and he wasn’t. We—experimented. I was young and not ready for most of it. I don’t mean kink or anything.”
The shelter of Smith’s body, and the gentle touch of his strong hands make it easy to keep talking. “But I traded—I was basically like a prostitute—trading sex, not for money, but for affection, maybe for some misguided idea of love. I’ll never know for sure. But I wanted it so bad at the time, I did things that didn’t feel good or seem right to me.”
“How old were you?” His voice is low and hoarse.
“Fifteen,” I say calmly, hoping he won’t judge me harshly like the others.
“How old was he?” Smith stiffens under me, even before I say the word.
“Twenty.”
His heart is hammering, and as much as I want to, I don’t dare turn my head to look at his face. I’m not at all sure what I’ll find there.
“Twenty,” he repeats in a carefully modulated voice. “How did you meet?”
“A party. I went with friends. It wasn’t his fault—not initially. I was tall and looked older. I let him believe I was older.” Although he never asked my age.
“It was totally his fault—all of it,” Smith barks. “What’s his name?”
“Ryan. What difference does it make?”
“Ryan what?” I flinch at the demand.
“He said it was Cleary. But it wasn’t.”
“I want the rest, Kate. The part you’re not telling me because it embarrasses you. The only person who should be ashamed is the man who touched a little girl.” Smith’s voice has a cutting edge—all pretense of control has slipped away.
His response makes me uneasy. I don’t know what to make of it and I get defensive.
“I wasn’t a little girl. I own some of the responsibility too.” At least that’s what everyone said when it happened—everyone but Fiona. My brother Tommy thought I owned all of it for sneaking out and lying, and for being a stupid whore. That’s what he called me when he picked me up from the party with his girlfriend Tessa in the car. Tessa told her sisters, and by Monday everyone at school knew I had been found half undressed, in a room at the frat house with four boys. I squeeze my eyes tight, but it’s not enough to stop the memories from flooding me.
“Kate,” he prods, stroking my skin with his fingertips. “I need to hear the rest.”
I run the pad of a finger over Smith’s ribs, counting each one as the awful words tumble out. “One night, there was a party at the frat house and I drank some punch—usually I only had a beer, but Ryan urged me to try it that night, and I wanted to please him. After a couple glasses, I went upstairs with Ryan. That wasn’t unusual. We always went up to his room during the parties. But this time, a few of his friends came in. That had never happened.”
“I need a minute,” Smith chokes out, lifting me off of him. He opens the balcony door but doesn’t go outside. Instead, he rests his hand on the doorframe near his head, staring out over the city.
This is where it ends. Like it did the last time I cared about a man. The pain in my chest is excruciating. I should have never told him.
After a few minutes that seem to go on for hours, I get up to find my clothes. “Where you going?” he asks, from the balcony door.
“I-I think it’s best if I leave.”
He tilts his head to the side. “Best for who?”
Best for both of us, but mostly for me.
When I don’t say anything, he strides over and leads me back to the sofa. “I am so pissed off right now—I want to hunt the bastard down and twist his neck until he can’t breathe—not just him, all of them.” He kneels beside me, an angry vein throbbing in his neck. “Did they rape you?”
His voice is calm, but his eyes are aflame with dangerous sparks flickering wildly. And I know before this discussion is over, I will be burned. But it’s impossible to change course now. The embers have caught, and there’s no way out.
I shake my head. “They kissed me and groped my breasts. Pulled off my shirt. Then the police came and broke up the party.”
“Were they arrested?” I hear hope in his voice, but it’s not how that night ended.
“No. The officers who responded called my brother Tommy—they wanted to avoid a scandal. My father had just been named a captain on the police force. It was a huge deal. Tommy was so mad.” I’ll never forget his face—or his words. “He called me a whore, and took me to St. Claire’s—to the rectory—and woke up Father Tierney. He didn’t know what else to do.”
“He called you a whore?”
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I’m not even sure I did. I glance at Smith. His eyes are black, and his snarl mean. I must have.
“Your brother managed those bastards by blaming you?”
“They didn’t force me to do anything. They wanted oral sex and I would have given it to them.”
“You were an intoxicated fifteen-year-old and those bastards were miserable excuses for grown men. Despite what your religion teaches, there are no rewards for martyrs. Stop blaming yourself.”
He sits on the edge of the sofa beside me, his head in his hands. “I can’t believe … I can’t—why didn’t you tell me this before we had sex? I specifically asked you about trauma, Kate. You lied to me. Why did you let me talk to you the way I did, and push you—I knew you were inexperienced. I fucking knew something was amiss. But I didn’t listen to my gut.” He strikes the coffee table with his fist and it splits in two, dumping the decorative art books and my water on the floor.
I pick up the water, gripping the bottle in both shaking hands, gawking at the table in disbelief. It was almost the perfect weekend. How can it end like this? But it will, because I don’t know how to fix it. My internal monologue goes on and on, moving faster and faster, but never getting anywhere.
I’m not sure how much time passes before he speaks. “I could have made it better—easier—on you. Cleaned my act up a little.” He picks up a long shard of wood, twirling it between his fingers.
“You’re going to get a splinter.”
“A splinter? That’s the least of my fucking worries.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
He turns his head to look at me, his brow furrowed deeply.
“When I was in college, I had a boyfriend—my first boyfriend after… We were friends before things got more serious. I really liked him. We were working up to sex when I told him about what happened in the frat house.” He recoiled. Just like you did. “It was a lot for him to handle—too much. He tried, but he could never get past the fact that if the police hadn’t come, I would have given them all blow jobs and probably anything else they wanted.”
Smith fills his cheeks with air and blows it out. The man who hasn’t been able to keep his hands off me all weekend hasn’t touched me since we sat down.
“Have a little faith in me. I’m not a stupid college boy.”
“No. But you would have treated me like a girl with special needs. Like I was emotionally fragile and you needed to be careful so I wouldn’t shatter. What kind of experience would that have made? I didn’t want that. I wanted you to treat me like the other women you’ve been with. I like you—and I know it’s premature, but I wanted us to have a chance.”
He flicks his wrist and the long fragment of wood glides through the air like a paper airplane, landing just beyond the ruined table. “If I hadn’t pushed, would you have ever told me?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. I really don’t. “I’d like to say yes, but I don’t know. I didn’t want the past to soil the future.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, but his thick dark eyelashes flutter as the realization sets in.
“I’ve been in some hellish places.” He leans back against the sofa, pulling me with him, until my head is resting against his shoulder. The emotion wells up inside
my throat. I wasn’t sure he’d ever touch me again. “I mean, places that make hell look like a fucking walk in the park. I can get through anything—as long as I know what I’m dealing with. But keeping this kind of thing from me, Kate, isn’t going to work. You want me to trust you, but you need to trust me, too.”
I tip my head up. “I—”
“I understand why you did it. I know all about not dirtying life with ugly details from the battlefield.”
He kisses me gently like I’m made of candy glass. When his kiss doesn’t turn rough and demanding, I can’t help but wonder if it ever will again, or if this truly is the beginning of the end.
“Don’t pity me, and don’t treat me like I’m broken. Anything but that.”
He trails his nose along the edge of my jaw. “Broken? I’m just marshalling my energy. We only have this room until five and I believe I promised you a fuck against that window, so hard you wouldn’t remember your name.”
There’s an edge of bravado to his voice that’s never been there before. It’s the decent, human part of him that’s unsure about how to treat me. It makes me want him all the more. Not in a trade for affection—I can get that from him without the sex. I want all this man has to offer. Everything.
I throw my arms around his neck. “Thank you,” I murmur into his warm skin, as he pulls me tight against him. “Thank you.”
“Let’s see if you’re still thanking me tomorrow when it hurts to sit. Go stand in front of that window. Give me this,” he says, pulling off my shirt. “I want your feet apart and those ripe rosy nipples grazing the glass while you wait for me quietly, like a good little princess.”
The pounding against the window requires a nap and a long shower that involves Smith shampooing my hair. Having his strong fingers massaging my scalp was almost as good as the sex. When we’re done, he gets out of the shower and tosses me a warm towel.
“What’s this from?” I ask, taking a break from drying my legs to run a finger along a scar on the right side of his abdomen. It’s larger, and although it’s healed, it’s fresher than the others that are scattered over his body. I’ve wondered about it since I first saw him with his shirt off.
“Should we order room service before we leave, or do you want to stop for food on the way to your place?” Nice pivot, Sinclair. But not today.
“Up to you. I can wait.” I reach out and touch the healed wound. He stiffens under my fingers. “What is this?”
“A scar,” he says in an I’m not answering that question voice that he hasn’t used with me since we met.
“I can see that. It doesn’t look as old as some of the others. What happened?” He doesn’t say a word. “I realize you can’t give me details, but you can tell me something about what happened.”
He finishes drying himself with his back turned toward me. “Not your business.”
I’m sorry? He can’t possibly think— “You think I’m going to write a story about how you got your scar?”
“No. That’s not what I think. But how I got the scar doesn’t involve you.” He tosses the towel over the tub ledge and stalks out of the bathroom. Oh no, you don’t.
I follow him into the living area, where he’s pulling on his pants.
“I just poured out my soul. You expected it because you hadn’t betrayed my trust. I’m quite certain I haven’t betrayed yours, either. And now I expect you to tell me about the scar. Not the classified part, but everything else, because from the way you’re acting, it’s a big deal.”
There’s not one peep from him while he buttons his shirt, like it’s delicate neurosurgery that requires his full attention. “Get dressed,” he says finally. “I’m going down to the front desk to explain the broken table. Meet me in the lobby when you’re ready.”
Like hell. “If you leave this room without talking to me about the injury, you don’t need to bother waiting downstairs. I’ll find my own way home.” He stops short, just inside the door. “While I understand that fair does not always mean equal, I believe relationships, of all sorts, thrive on give and take. I won’t have another man in my life whose behavior I have to justify to myself to keep my heart from breaking. You go, we’re done.”
He hasn’t faced me, but he’s still here.
“It happened three years ago. My niece needed a liver transplant. Her mother was a good match, but had she donated, she would have been too weak to take care of a sick child who needed her—but my sister would have pushed herself to do it anyway.” Smith takes a breath, and blows it out with a long sigh.
“I was also a good match,” he continues, as though this is the last discussion on earth he wants to be having. “I donated part of my right lobe. A healthy liver regenerates within a short time. It wasn’t a big deal.” He takes a step closer to the door while I do the math in my head.
“That’s why you left the military.”
“I didn’t have to leave. They would have found something for me, but I was out of field operations forever—at least out of the kind of operations I’d been trained to do.”
My body is swamped with a dizzying array of emotion. I’m overwhelmed that he would give that precious gift. Overwhelmed that a little girl is alive because of his selflessness. And overwhelmed by the realization that she will carry that burden one day. It all hits very close to home. “You gave up a career you loved to give your niece life,” I say, the tears trickling down my cheeks.
Smith spins toward me. “It’s not at all like that, Kate,” he spits out. “Don’t make me out to be some kind of fucking hero. I didn’t storm the beaches at Normandy. I wanted out of the Army. It was a convenient excuse. Now if you’re done probing my subconscious, I’ll meet you downstairs.”
I’m left in my towel, tears still trickling as the door clicks behind him. There’s clearly more to this story, but what he shared will do for now. The fact that he told me about it at all gives me hope for us.
27
Kate
It’s been two weeks since Smith’s birthday, and we’ve spent all our free time together, most of it naked. But tonight, we have a date before naked, and I need to finish getting ready or I’ll be late.
Just as I finish brushing a final coat of mascara onto my lashes, there’s a knock at the front door. Hmm. I’m supposed to meet Smith at the bar, but maybe his meeting finished early and he decided to swing by to get me.
I peek through the window. It’s Father Jesse. My conscience twinges as soon as I see his face. After I missed church again last Sunday, I emailed him some samples of the bulletin I had planned on taking with me so he could make a final decision, but I haven’t heard back.
I open the door, glancing at what appears to be some kind of pet carrier? “Hello,” I say, trying not to stare at the thing in his hand.
“I’m sorry to drop in like this. I realized halfway here I should have called.”
“Please don’t apologize. It’s fine. Come in,” I assure him, trying to wrack my brain about whether there’s anything lying around that a priest shouldn’t see.
“I brought you a gift. It’s another one of those regifts that I hope you’ll accept.” He holds up the carrier. “Someone left this little guy at St. Maggie’s last night. Hoping that we would take care of him, I suppose. But I can’t keep a pet, and Virginia is terribly allergic. I don’t want to have to call animal control.” I peer into his sober face. I don’t want that either. “Although frankly,” he continues, “as soon as I laid eyes on this sweet cat, I thought of you, and how as a child you had longed for a pet.”
“A cat? For me?” I try to sound less surprised than I feel. Actually, I’m not sure how I feel.
“He came without instructions. Just with some dry food. Like Magdalene herself, so much about this kitty is unknown.”
While Father Jesse compares the cat’s history to Mary Magdalene’s, I rack my brain trying to remember what my lease says about pets. Pets under twenty pounds are permitted. Yes, that’s right.
“Why don’t we put
the carrier on the counter? It looks heavy.” I peek at the cat through the small grate at one end. He’s cowering in the back of the carrier. Poor baby. You don’t need to be afraid. I won’t hurt you. “Does he have a name?”
“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know it. Maybe you can come up with something fitting.”
“He’s so sweet. But he’s shivering. I bet he’s scared to death. Do you know for sure that he’s a he?”
“I had him out for a bit last night. I haven’t had much experience with cats, but I know all about the male species.”
I smile at the roundabout way he describes the cat’s sex. Smith would have gone straight at it and made some sarcastic dick remark. I take another peek at the Tabby with his shiny orange coat that makes him seem like he’s meant for me. He looks back at me with a vulnerability that steals my heart without any effort at all.
“Cat’s aren’t as much work as dogs,” Father Jesse explains. “At least that’s what I’ve always heard. And this one isn’t a kitten.”
I take another peek into the carrier. “Sold,” I say cheerfully. “You’re right. I’ve always wanted a pet and this little guy needs someone to love him.”
Father Jesse glances around the kitchen. “How’s the TV working out?”
“I love it. I’ve been watching more of it than I should.”
“Good.” He gives me a lopsided smile. “I hope you love the cat even more. I should go. I have to stop by the hospital and visit a parishioner who was admitted this morning. Will I see you on Sunday?”
“Yes.” I lower my eyes, staring at my shoes like a child about to be chided for misbehaving. “I’m sorry about last Sunday.” And the Sunday before that.
“I’m sure it was important,” he says, and my conscience pings while I think about my nipples pressed against the cold glass and Smith’s—
“Did you have a chance to look at the sample bulletins I emailed?”