She snorted in disgust. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“My life went to shit since high school . . . since Shelley Rae died.”
She jerked a little at the name. She always tried so hard not to think about her. She couldn’t stop the nightmares from coming when they would, but she made a valiant effort to keep Shelley Rae out of her waking thoughts.
“I didn’t realize you were that close.” She knew they ran in the same circles. All the popular kids did—and the kids whose parents had money. She eyed Colby up and down. He didn’t look like he had two nickels to rub together now.
He removed a hand from his pocket and scrubbed the back of his neck with it. “We had a . . . thing. She wanted it to be more.”
Piper nodded slowly, processing that. “It was you,” she whispered. “You were the one that was supposed to come over that night to her house.”
“Yeah. It was me.”
Warped as it was, she guessed it explained a little bit more about the night Shelley Rae had died. She was infatuated with Colby, so she wanted to give him Piper—all doped up and wrapped up in a bow. “She thought drugging me so you could rape me would win you over for her?”
He nodded, his expression grim. “Yeah. I guess she did.”
“You would have raped me,” she accused, feeling so oddly detached right then. Not even afraid. Only enraged.
“Yes. That was the idea. I—I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? You sick . . .” Her voice faded. There were no words.
He nodded again, looking miserable. “I spent the first couple years after she died trying to act normal. Trying to be normal. I did what my family expected. Went to college. Majored in business. Then I just couldn’t anymore.” He took a deep breath. “Well, you don’t want to hear all about me and my sad shit.” He shook his head like a dog after a bath. “I’ve been clean for the last six months, but my sponsor says I won’t ever feel right if I didn’t make amends—”
“Is that what this is? Why you’ve been stalking me all around town? I’m some fucking number on your AA list?”
“Uh, yeah. I can’t live like this anymore. The guilt has been eating at me. Shelley Rae would still be alive if it weren’t for me—”
“You didn’t kill her.”
He stared at her intently, his eyes so bloodshot she wondered if he was actually clean or still high. “I’ve got my guilt to bear. I played my part that night.”
She nodded. “Yeah. You did.” And her family—her brother and sister—were suffering for that.
“Well, this is my apology in all sincerity to you. For everything I did to you in high school . . . for what I wanted to do to you that night.”
Several beats passed. “Do you feel better?” she finally asked. Because she didn’t.
Facing Colby right now dredged up all the awfulness from her past, which was never far from the surface anyway. It didn’t make her feel any better. Maybe it gave him peace, but not her. Her burden wasn’t lifted. He was going down the list of people he had screwed over and working toward lifting his burden, but she would never have that relief. Her soul was as heavy as ever.
“Well, that’s awesome for you. I’m glad you feel better.”
He stared at her for a long moment and it was like this man—her would-be rapist—was seeing directly inside her mind. “You’ll never feel better. Not until you unburden yourself of everything that bothers you.”
“Yeah? Thanks for the great advice, Yoda. Go to hell.” Without giving him a chance to say anything else, she turned and stalked away, pushing through the doors to the building.
Of course the first face she would see would be Hale’s. He was emerging from his office in the company of the local county prosecutor. Fortunately, she wasn’t familiar with the prosecutor. Her brother had been prosecuted through the City of Sweet Hill and not the county.
His gaze met hers and lit up even as he shook hands with the prosecutor. And it was like a punch to the solar plexus because after facing Colby she could only think how he wouldn’t look at her the same way if he knew everything about her. If he knew the truth.
This was exactly why she should never have gotten tangled up with Hale—among other reasons. Cruz would be furious to know she was involved with him and he would have every right to be. He’d given up his freedom so that she could take care of Malia. So he could protect both of them.
Every moment with Hale, she risked everything and it had to stop. She had to stop this selfish behavior. She had to end it.
Twenty-Two
They might have cast aside all attempts to keep their relationship professional, but Hale couldn’t seem to get Piper alone. Alone where he could get her naked. He was like a teenage boy desperate to be alone with the first girl who let him see her tits. It was rather extraordinary. He had never been that teenage boy even when he was a teenage boy.
And yet living under the same roof and getting her alone wasn’t as easy a task as one would think—as he would hope. Workplace sex was out of the question. Even if he couldn’t stop staring at the couch every time he was inside his office and remembering how sweet it had been between them. He would never regret it, but it was a bad idea to repeat the behavior. If she continued to visit him in his office with the door shut, people would talk. She was gaining the respect of the others in the department. The last thing he wanted was people thinking ill of her. She’d been unfairly judged for so much of her life already. He wouldn’t perpetuate that cycle.
But it wasn’t any easier to get her alone after work.
Tuesday night Malia had a soccer game, so it was after nine before Piper got home with her and then Malia stayed up late working on homework while Piper went to bed. He could hardly sneak into her room while her sister was working on her geometry at the kitchen table.
Then Wednesday night he got called into work and didn’t return home until well after 2 a.m.
By the time Thursday rolled around he’d suffered enough cold showers and decided he was done torturing himself. He waited a full two hours after Malia went to bed, which put it at midnight when he was creeping out of his bedroom and skulking through the hallway like some kind of thief in his own house. Or maybe a teenager. He was carrying a condom in his hand, after all. Until she was on the pill, he wouldn’t be as reckless as that first time.
It dawned on him that he might be far gone over this girl. As he crept into her bedroom and shut the door quietly behind him, gently turning the lock, he realized that he might be more than far gone. He might feel for her more than he’d ever felt for any woman. God knew he wanted her more than any woman. As he eased the sheets down her lush little body, he knew he was treading in new territory. This desire for her was all-consuming. He liked her. He liked her under his roof. The only thing he would like more was Piper in his bed every night.
She was wearing a T-shirt, but it might as well have been sexy lingerie. Just the sight of her, even in the gloom of her room, gave him an instant erection.
He reached under her shirt, hooked his thumbs around her panties and slid them down her silken legs, acknowledging that he really didn’t care how far gone he might be anymore. This was all he cared about it. These moments with her.
He stared at her face. She looked so young and relaxed in slumber, and he wondered if she knew what she was doing to him. Did she have any clue how much power she wielded over him?
He ran his hands over her legs and she sighed, parting for him. Even asleep, she seduced him. He splayed his hands on the insides of her thighs and spread her wider. How could he have gone this long without tasting her the other times they had been together?
Unable to wait any longer, he dipped his head and took his first taste, tonguing her long and deep. She moaned in her sleep, bending her knees and pushing her sweet pussy into his questing mouth. He lapped her up, drinking deep. He never thought a woman could taste so sweet. He found her clit and worried it gently with his teeth before sucking it deep and sending her gasping awake
.
“Hale,” she cried.
“Shhh,” he whispered against her quivering flesh.
“What are you doing to me?” she moaned, and fell back on the bed, her hands tangling in his hair.
“First,” he said, his tongue still playing on her, “I’m fucking you with my mouth.” He spent a few more moments proving just that, sucking and nipping and then spreading her wide and spearing his tongue deep into her opening, until she was writhing on the bed under him.
Then he sat up, ripped open the condom, rolled it on and eased into her slowly. “Now I’m fucking you like this.”
She came on his second stroke, vibrating and milking his cock, pushing him closer toward his own release.
He loved how responsive she was. It was like she was his instrument, made only to react to his hands. It had never been like this with anyone before her and it terrified him. Because he couldn’t imagine having this with anyone else. Because with her, he didn’t want anyone else.
He came hard and swift, dropping over her with ragged pants. “We went entirely too long without doing that. I need you every day.”
Her hand came up to caress his face. She didn’t speak, but he knew something was wrong. His Piper was never at a loss for words.
His Piper? Was that true?
Yes, it was true. He’d been barreling toward this moment since she poured a pitcher of water in his lap. Other women brought him muffins and cakes, but this woman brought him joy and challenge.
“What is it?” he asked.
“This can’t . . . We can’t keep doing this.”
“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back to tell you why you’re wrong.”
He got up from the bed and disposed of the condom, returning to her side, his heart hammering. If this was the beginning of a breakup conversation, he had never felt this sense of panic before. This desperate sense of I-can’t-lose-her.
“You were saying . . .”
“I’m moving out next week. I just think we can stop this before it goes any further and gets more complicated. We work together and you don’t do relationships—”
“I would do it for you,” he heard himself saying without thought . . . and then he realized it was true. He would. He wanted a relationship with her.
“Oh God.” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe this is happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to make this so difficult.”
He pulled her hands away from her face. “What are you talking about?”
“You weren’t supposed to be like this. You weren’t supposed to actually want me—”
“But I do want you. And don’t tell me you don’t want me either. You’d be lying.”
“Of course I want you.” Her voice grew choked. “But there are things about me that you don’t know.”
“Then tell me.”
She stared at him in the near dark, her eyes liquid pools of light. “All right. It will change everything though.”
“Not the way I feel about you,” he insisted, and meant it.
For some reason, however, he felt a sinking sensation in his gut. He didn’t believe there could be anything that could change how he felt about her, but the way her face looked right now, he knew he wasn’t going to like what he heard, and he knew putting it out there would change things for her if nothing else.
That was the most alarming thought of all.
She had to tell him.
Since Colby’s confession, she could hardly sleep. Living a lie wasn’t nearly so hard when she didn’t have to look at Hale every day. When her heart didn’t beat faster every time he walked in the room. When she didn’t care about him and want him so damn much her chest ached.
When she didn’t love him.
She’d gone and fallen for him and she couldn’t help wishing for more . . . for everything, for the life she’d told herself she could never have. The life other women got to have. She wanted him to be hers forever, but she’d always told herself she could never have that. It had never been a particular challenge denying herself a storybook forever because she’d never had anyone like him in her life. But here he was, being beautiful and so very enticing.
She had to come clean with him. And not just with him. She had to confess to the world or she would never feel free and deserving of anything. She couldn’t live her life with this hanging over her anymore.
“I have to tell you something. I did this . . . thing.” She stifled a snort and cleared her throat. That was putting it mildly.
“I don’t care.”
She gave him a pained smile. “Hear what it is before you say that.” She took a careful breath. “When I was eighteen, a girl in my high school invited me to spend the night at her house. Shelley Rae Kramer.” She winced. She couldn’t really remember the last time she had said her name out loud.
“The girl your brother murdered.”
Of course he would know the details of her brother’s case. She held Hale’s gaze, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Shelley Rae and I never really got along,” she explained, hesitating at that admission. It was a gentle euphemism.
Now that Shelley Rae was dead, it felt . . . wrong to speak ill of her. It was like Piper was trying to shift blame. But Shelley Rae had been a bully. There was no other description for her. Cruel and devious, she had tormented Piper since elementary school.
She continued. “I thought she wanted to be friends. She claimed she did. She apologized for the years she had bullied me. We were supposed to have a genuine girl’s night. I was a fool.”
“No, you weren’t,” he argued. “You wanted it to be true.”
“Her parents were out of town. We were watching movies, eating pizza, popcorn. It was fun. The kind of thing I never got to do. And then suddenly I got . . . dizzy. It was like I was moving through a fog.” She fluttered a hand. “I remember spilling my drink on the carpet.”
She stopped. That night existed in fragments for her. She’d struggled to remember it in its entirety over the years, but she only dreamed of it in snatches. Sometimes new bits would appear. “I told her I was going to be sick . . . and she laughed at me. Called me trash. All of sudden she was that mean girl again.”
“What did she do to you?” His voice was hard and she risked a quick glance at his face. He looked angry, but she knew he wasn’t angry with her. Not yet. That moment was yet to come. He was angry right now at what she was describing and that’s because he cared about her. He still thought she was an innocent victim of a high school bully. She swallowed painfully. If only that was the end of it.
She took a careful breath. “She roofied me. And, oh, she delighted in telling me that.” A broken laugh tore from her lips. “She relished it . . .”
He cursed.
Flashes of that night punched through her memory. Staggering through Shelley Rae’s media room, her world spinning, the bile rising in her throat. Her hands stretched out in front of her, straining to reach for the perky cheerleader who kept laughing and hopping out of reach as she flung cruel taunts at Piper. Even in her glee, Shelley Rae’s face twisted with a hate that Piper couldn’t understand.
Piper bumped into a side table and knocked over a lamp. It struck the hardwood and shattered to pieces.
“She told me she still hated me. She didn’t want to be my friend. She called me trash.” She winced. “All kinds of awful names. Inviting me over, acting like she was my friend, was a setup. She said someone was coming over and they were going to show me a good time.”
“Someone as in a guy?”
“Yeah. She had arranged everything.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “One of the guys from school was coming over to rape me.”
He cursed again and reached for her. She scooted back on the bed, holding out her hands to ward him off. “No. I might have started out the victim in that scenario, but it didn’t end that way.”
“What happened?”
“I managed to grab her. We fell to the floor.” She s
hook her head. “We fought . . .” She remembered the struggle. The shards of lamp all around them. She remembered Shelley Rae slapping her and calling her names. She remembered lifting her arms, heavy as bricks, to hit her back.
Then she remembered nothing more. Just a big wall of blackness.
She woke much later. Sunlight streamed into the room . . . and she was lying in a pool of blood. Blood that wasn’t hers.
“I killed her. We broke a lamp when we were fighting.” She motioned to her neck. “I jabbed a piece of glass right into her throat.”
She was crying now, her words drowning in great sobs. In her telling, the tears had started to fall and now they ran unchecked down her face. Hale pulled her into his arms. She tried to resist, but she was weak. She wanted it too much. She wanted it almost from the start with him. She wanted him to love her despite this. Despite everything.
“But your brother . . . he’s in prison for killing the Kramer girl—” He stopped and pulled back to look at her. “Piper, no . . .”
Her words fell in a torrent. “I called Cruz. He took the blame. He said I had to let him. He insisted.” The tears were coming fast now and her voice was practically indecipherable. “Cruz had custody of Malia, but he was about to lose it because he got into trouble . . . some petty theft charges. We weren’t worried because I was eighteen. I was going to get custody of her. If I went to prison, then Malia would go to foster care. Cruz said that couldn’t happen. She was only eight and she’d already been through so much. She couldn’t lose both of us.”
Hale let go of her and swung his legs over the side of the bed, propping his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. “Piper,” he groaned. “You should have told the police. You couldn’t have been found responsible for—”
“Oh, really? You’re so sure of that?”
He stared at her bleakly and she knew even he wasn’t sure.
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