“I might like you, too, if you didn’t go out of your way to be a complete asshole at all times.”
He studied me, his fingers playing across the strings of the guitar. Dammit, why did he of all people have to play guitar on top of everything? He already looked like a freaking god.
The thought made me smile, and he plucked the cord from the end of the guitar and started winding it around his arm. “So that’s it? You came up here to tell me you’d like me if I wasn’t me? Okay, awesome. Got it. I could have saved you a trip because I’m pretty sure even a guy who had to repeat senior year could figure that out.”
“I didn’t come up here because I want anything from you,” I said. “As shocking as this must be for you, not everyone is out to get you, Xander. Not everyone wants your money, or whatever else you think I’m after. I just came up to see if you were okay. So what’s your problem?”
“Nothing,” he said, his voice wilting. He sat down on the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t have a problem. You didn’t have to come up here. I’m fine.”
I stood there a minute, not sure what to do with myself. “Is it because of what I said earlier? Because I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” he said without lifting his head.
“Okay,” I said, backing toward the door. “Cool.”
“Wait.” His hands fisted his hair. “Don’t run away.”
“I’m not running.”
He lifted his face. “You’re always running away.”
“Yeah, well, you’re always giving me a reason to.”
For a moment, we sized each other up. It didn’t take him long. There wasn’t much of me to go around.
“Fuck,” he said, raking his hand through his hair before slapping his palm down on his knee. He looked up at me, and I had to take another step back from the anguish on his face. “When I opened that door and saw your hair all over the bed, and your hands tied up behind that chair…”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I would have killed that guy.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted to.”
“You hate me.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, jumping up from the bed and prowling around the room. He stopped in front of me, his hands resting on my shoulders. “You really think that?”
I shrugged, staring straight ahead at his chest instead of looking up at him. “Do I think you hate me? Well, yeah. Kind of. Do I think it’s my fault? No.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said, his forehead dropping down to rest against mine. He closed his eyes, his voice a whisper of defeat. “You scare the hell out of me, Gwen.”
My name was a trapped bird inside his mouth, beating against the bars of a cage, dying more each second of its captivity. I almost cried out in despair at the sound of it. I wanted to save that bird, but I didn’t know if it was him or me.
“I thought you didn’t know my name,” I whispered, barely able to speak.
“I know your name, Gwenevere Penelope Keen,” he said, pronouncing each word slowly. “I probably know more about you than you know about yourself.”
“So tell me.” My heart was beating so hard I couldn’t breathe, my head swimming with dizziness at being so close to him. It felt so right, after so long, to finally touch him like this, without fighting my inescapable attraction. It was as if we were two magnets, and all this time, we’d been trying to force the repellent ends together. At last, we’d been turned around, and his magnetism was irresistible. I reached up to wrap my hands around his forearms, anchoring myself.
He straightened a bit, pressing his nose into my hair and dragging in a deep breath. “I know your smell. I know how your laughter builds like a scream inside you until you can’t hold back any longer. I know how your whole face lights up when we go fast on my bike.” His hand circled my waist, flattening against the small of my back, drawing me against him. “I know how it feels to hurt you, and have to see it all over your face.”
“Then stop hurting me,” I whispered, my fingers skimming up his arms, over his strong shoulders.
He drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t.”
“And I can’t stop showing it when you do,” I said. “I’m not going to hide myself for you, Xander.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse than that.”
“I shouldn’t have left you with him,” he said, his hands raking up my back suddenly. He lifted his head, his tormented eyes finding mine. “I’ll make it up to you. I can make it all go away. I can erase where he’s been, make it like it never happened.”
Wordlessly, I slid my hands further around him, flattening them on his shoulder blades as I pulled him closer. My body responded, every part of me finding the place it fit against every part of him. Heart pounding, I held his gaze. My throat tightened, closing off my breath. I could only nod.
His strong hands slid over my shoulders and up my neck, lifting my chin. Cradling my face in his hands, he pulled me up, bending to claim my mouth with his own.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gwen
A minute later, Xander turned our bodies and walked me to the bed, his mouth never leaving mine. We fell onto the bed, our limbs tangling, his lips showing mine the way. Instinct took over, and I let my hands roam over his shoulders, his throat, his lush hair. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. My hands were starved for more of him, as if all those years of not touching anyone had left me dry as a desert that only he could quench.
I tugged at the bottom of his T-shirt, wanting more of his skin. My fingers skimmed the top edge of his jeans, and I sucked in a breath. He grabbed my hand, his grip crushing, and his mouth jerked back from mine. “Don’t,” he said, his eyes blurry with hunger.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered, shame twisting in my gut. My throat constricted, and tears threatened behind my eyes.
“I don’t hook up,” Xander said, sitting up and turning his back, dropping his head into his hands again.
“Don’t do that,” I said, sitting up beside him and resting a hand on his back. I couldn’t let go of that glimpse I’d seen of the real Xander, the one behind the stiff shoulders and hardened voice. “Please don’t go back to hating me. I didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t trying to…I mean, I don’t hook up, either.”
“Obviously,” he said, lifting his head and scowling at me.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “Don’t do this again.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why are you like this?”
He snorted. “I can’t tell you that. You’re the only person who doesn’t know. I’d like to keep it that way a little longer.”
“Well, I’m tired of being the person who doesn’t understand anything. I want to understand you, Xander. I…I really like you.” The words sounded so lame, so insufficient.
“Exactly why I can’t tell you,” he said, shrugging my hand off his shoulder.
“I want to know,” I said, coaxing his chin around so he was looking at me. “Help me understand. I want to know everything about you. Even the ugly parts. You saw mine.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Your scars?”
“Let me see yours.”
He dropped back on the bed, crossing his hands behind his head and squeezing his elbows together over his face. “Why don’t you ask one of the others?”
“Because I don’t want them to tell me. I want you to.” I lay beside him, nestling my head against the side of his chest.
He was quiet a long moment. “Fine,” he said, scooting his arm under my head. “It’s probably better if you don’t get any ideas about me being a decent guy.”
I slid my arm over his chest and my leg across his, marveling at the way our bodies fit together like they were made for this. “Too late,” I whispered.
“This shit is all ancient history,” he said. “It was years ago, when Mom was really bad. In
stead of being by her side, I was in a courtroom with some girl I didn’t even know.”
I swallowed, dreading what he was going to say next. The instinct to run washed over me, and I tensed, my body telling me to do what I always did. To run away, to tell him I’d changed my mind and I didn’t want to hear this after all. But I knew if I did that, I’d be closing this door forever.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“It was at this stupid party,” he said. “I was trying to forget about Mom, and I got fucked up and ended up in bed with some chick I didn’t even know. I don’t remember any of it. Just waking up the next morning with her.”
His voice was flat, completely devoid of emotion, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as he spoke. “She said I got her drunk.”
I swallowed the sour taste in the back of my throat. “She said you raped her?”
“No,” he said. “Worse. She said I got her pregnant.”
I bit back the words that I knew not to say, to ask if he did.
“Who was she?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You don’t know her. She doesn’t go to school anymore. But she did then. We had to tell my parents, and her parents. Mom was…not doing well. Dad didn’t need to deal with this shit on top of it. But he did. We had to.”
“What did you do?”
“Dad wanted me to get rid of it,” he said, his voice harsh.
My stomach was shaking, but I couldn’t hold back the question this time. “Did you?”
“No,” he said. “She wanted to keep it. Chloe dumped me, but the girl… She had a boyfriend, and they stayed together. They were going to raise the baby. They just wanted me to pay for everything.”
Xander tried to take his arm from around me, but I held on, clinging to him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He sighed. “I didn’t blame Chloe for ditching me. She wasn’t going to walk around school every day seeing some chick her boyfriend had knocked up. We’re cool now. We’re friends.”
“I know.”
We were quiet for a minute. “The girl’s boyfriend hated me at first,” he said. “Got me kicked off the football team. Not that I wanted to play, anyway. I just did it because it was something to do. He made a big deal about how I’d slept with his girlfriend when she was drunk, said she could press charges, and did the coach really want a player like that on his team. But she never said that. She said we were both drunk. She wasn’t a bitch about it. They just didn’t have any money.”
“And you do.”
“Yeah. I didn’t mind. I got used to the idea. I was only sixteen, but it was kinda cool, thinking about being a dad, seeing it grow in there. Her boyfriend stopped being a dick when I stuck around, paid for everything, went to all the doctor appointments and shit. Everyone at school thought we were crazy, but the three of us were friends. We shared this cool thing that no one else shared. We were all in it together. It could have worked out.”
I swallowed, gripping a handful of his T-shirt to anchor myself. “Why didn’t it?”
“Dad was pissed. He told me not to pay for anything until the baby came and we knew for sure. But I wanted to. We fought all the time. It was hard on Mom. My brothers and Peyton didn’t know what to say to me. I didn’t like being home. I spent all my time with the girl and her boyfriend. Planning this whole life. Even Dad finally agreed I could use my trust fund to get them this nice little place not far from here, so I could see the kid. I guess I was kind of excited about it by the time it came. I was there when she had it. I was trying to do the right thing.”
“They took off with your money?” I asked.
“No,” he said, scowling. “Dad made them get a DNA test. The kid wasn’t even mine. Turned out, they had planned the whole thing. She was already pregnant the night of the party. I don’t even know if we really hooked up. They just wanted someone to pay for shit, and look, there’s a rich guy who looks dumb enough to do it.”
A tear slipped down my cheek and dripped onto his T-shirt, and I pressed a kiss against it, against him. “But you’re not stupid.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Life goes on. I was free.”
“That’s a good thing, though.”
“That’s what everybody said. But nine months is a long fucking time. Everything had changed. I’d changed. I’d let that idea of the future consume me. I’d dropped everything else for an entire school year. I’d believed the whole lie, not just the baby. All of it. I saw this life ahead, and then it was gone. I couldn’t just go back to the way things were.”
“Why not? It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your responsibility.”
“I wanted that life,” Xander said quietly, his fingers tangling in my wet hair. “I didn’t want to sue them and get the money back. I wanted what they’d said to be true. But that wasn’t an option.”
“And being this way is better?”
Xander let out a low, bitter laugh. “Dad made me go to court, and I had to sit there and see them. My friends. My only friends, by that point. They wouldn’t even look at me. Dad got the house back, just kicked them to the curb. I would have gone with them, but they didn’t want anything to do with me if I wasn’t going to pay for shit.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. Dad sent me away to a boarding school because he didn’t want to see my face. When I came back the next year, they were gone. Those assholes didn’t deserve anything more than what they already got from us.”
We were quiet for a moment, Xander’s hand absently tugging at a knot in my hair. Tingles traveled from my scalp all the way down my body from his touch. Finally, I pushed myself up on one elbow and looked down at him. “I just have one question,” I said.
Xander swallowed, his dark eyes guarded. “Yeah?”
“Why would any of that make me think less of you?”
He frowned, opened his mouth, and then closed it. I searched his grey eyes, darkened now with brooding. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Everyone at school knows what happened. I’m the sucker who got taken in by those people. I actually believed we were friends. I’m the joke.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong. They did.”
“I ditched that kid.”
“It wasn’t your kid.”
We stared at each other a long moment. “We aren’t like them,” I said. “We didn’t come here looking for money. We didn’t even know you had it until we got here.”
“I know.”
I brushed my fingers over his forehead, smoothing the creases of his frown. “I’m not going anywhere without you,” I whispered. “You’re part of something real this time, Xander. We all are. It’s not a lie.”
He caught my hand and pressed it to his chest, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “How do I know that?”
“Because I’m not running.”
I slid my body onto his, pressing my cheek against his strong chest, listening to the reassuring, steady thrum of his heartbeat. His legs intertwined with mine, his arms wrapping around my body, his hips fitting mine with unbearable perfection. My belly moved in rhythm with his as we breathed, like two parts of the same being, two broken pieces that had finally found their way back to the place where they belonged.
From the Author
A book that doesn’t end on a cliffhanger? What is this madness, you ask! ??
Emerge was written to stand on its own, but I fell in love and wanted to make it a series. However, authors don’t always know what readers will connect with. If you would like me to make this a series, please let me know by either leaving a review here or emailing me (you can do that through my club below).
If you’d like to be notified of future books, click here to join my RH Readers Club, where you’ll always be the first to know. Click here to Join the Club!
Resources
Mental health
There are millions of people all over the globe who suffer from various mental illnesses. In America, it is one o
f the most commonly dismissed diseases, so people too often suffer in silence. Those suffering may be afraid to speak out as there is still enormous stigma surrounding these illnesses. If you or a loved one needs help with your mental health, please do not hesitate to reach out and seek the care that you deserve!
If you’re in crisis or feel suicidal, go to your nearest emergency room or call this toll-free number, open 24 hours a day. 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text MHA to 741741.
For non-emergencies, you may want to start here: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/finding-help
Homelessness
It’s not the sexiest topic on the news, so homelessness doesn’t get a lot of media attention, but there it is estimated that over half a million people in the United States alone suffer homelessness. Of those, about a quarter are children. If you or a loved one is experiencing homelessness, here are two organizations to get you started. Most libraries allow people to sign into their computers with a guest log-in that does not require a permanent address.
www.nationalsafeplace.org/homeless-youth
https://youth.gov/youth-topics/runaway-and-homeless-youth
Acknowledgements
Making a book takes a village. Writing it is only one small part. A huge thanks to all the people who helped Emerge…well…emerge. My son, who went without my attentions for a month while I drafted and several more while I wrestled it into shape. My talented, encouraging editor Rebecca Jaycox who made me believe this book didn’t have to sit on my hard drive gathering dust forever (and who patiently began to break me of my comma addiction). My cover artist, Elena Dudina, whose three pieces of art captured Bifrost perfectly. My typographer, Angela Fristoe. My beta readers, Jammie Bebout, Kate Marin-Andrew, Tina Merritt, and Kim Owens for helping me catch last minute errors and smooth rough edges.
Thanks, y’all! I couldn’t have done it without you!
Emerge: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 25