by Elise Faber
“Because you taste good,” he said. A light bop to her nose. “But not jaded. Just . . . desensitized to fame and stardom.” He bent slightly, until their gazes were level, until she felt her pulse pick up at the intensity of his expression. “And I see you.” A beat. “The real you underneath the veneer.”
She fucking hoped not.
Because underneath that veneer was some scary shit.
“Now,” he said, spinning back around, arms assuming his previous position. “Hop on.”
Soph looked from Rob to the trail to her shoes and back to Rob.
Who was watching her, patience on his face.
And she figured . . . what the hell?
She placed her hands on his shoulders, bent her knees as though to jump—
“Oh!”
One second her feet were on the ground, the next she was in the air, warm arms clamped under her thighs—yum!—and she was clutching to his shoulders, holding on tightly. His heat surrounded her, along with his scent, and for a minute her head spun with the utter deliciousness of it.
Then he began moving—and at a much faster clip than she’d been managing.
He should be huffing and puffing as he hauled her ass up the cliffside, up the winding trail, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was carrying her as though she weighed nothing.
“I should have thought of this long ago,” she said, relaxing into the hold. “Before the blisters.”
His shoulders went stiff beneath her and in the next moment, she found herself seated on a rock on the side of the trail, her foot in his lap as he knelt in front of her. “Blisters?” he exclaimed. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine—”
But then her shoe was off, along with her sock, and before she had a moment to worry about the state of her feet when it came to the sweat and smell, his face was all up in there.
All up in there.
“Damn.” He cursed. “You do have blisters.”
“It’s my fault,” she said, reaching for her sock. “I should have picked my running shoes.”
“Or,” he muttered. “I should have not taken you up here in these shoes.” He reached into the pocket of his backpack and pulled out a small first aid kit, then for the second time in a day, he bandaged her boo-boos.
“I can do it.”
He ignored her, just gently put padding over the blister before stripping off her other shoe and sock.
Then glaring down at those blisters and repeating the process.
Geez. She was a train wreck, a hot mess, a total dumpster fire.
She couldn’t even hike one trail without making it a big thing, without ruining this nice man’s afternoon off.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t apologize,” he growled.
“But—”
He put away the garbage. “This is on me. I didn’t tell you where we were going. I should have made you change or taken you somewhere else or—”
His hands were shaking, though still gentle as he stroked them over her abused feet, and she covered them, holding them in place. “Why are you so upset?”
“Because . . .” He sighed. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
For some reason, the grumble made her grin. “And if I say I don’t need taking care of?” she asked archly.
His eyes flashed. “I’d say you’d—” He broke off, finished with the Band-Aids, and stowed the kit away. His voice was more controlled when he said, “I’d say you’re not going to get me to bite on that question.”
She giggled. “Maybe you’re right.”
“No maybe about it,” he said or rather grumbled again. Warm fingers slid on her sock, carefully tied her shoe. “Come on.” Then he bent again, so she could clamber onto his back.
Soph hesitated.
He lifted a brow.
She lifted hers.
“We’re almost to the top,” he coaxed.
“Hmm.” But she was already reaching for him, fingers itching to stroke that broad back again, to be pressed against him.
He snagged her legs, but she snagged the backpack. Ha.
“Sophie,” he warned.
“You carry me,” she said. “I carry it.”
Which obviously didn’t make sense. He was carrying her, would feel the extra weight whether it was on her shoulders or his. But slipping the backpack onto hers made her feel like she was at least doing something.
He sighed but didn’t argue further.
Instead, he hefted her higher, cupped her thighs a bit more snuggly, then began walking back up the trail.
And when he got them both to the top, she knew it had been worth the blisters.
Thirteen
On a Cliff
Rob
He placed her lightly on her feet, her sharp inhale matching his.
He’d come up here so often that he could practically draw it from memory (if he’d had any skill at drawing, that was), but since he didn’t, he just needed to rely on the images in his brain.
The ones in his phone had never seemed to capture the magic, so he’d stopped trying.
Now, when he had a spare afternoon, he tried his best to make it up here.
But it had been a long while since he’d managed.
“This is beautiful,” she whispered, walking to the edge of the small clearing. Well, limping to the edge and making him feel guilty all over again for having let her wear those dumb shoes.
He should have stopped her.
It was just . . . she’d looked so playful and mischievous, and he hadn’t been able to burst her bubble. Not to mention they’d made her ass look—
Chef’s kiss.
Total chef’s kiss.
His heart pulsed.
Because that was a saying he’d gotten from Carmella, and it hurt both good and bad.
Soph came close, her shoulder brushing his. “Did you bring your wife here?”
He shook his head. “No, Carmella was a beach addict, through and through.” He smiled. “She preferred flip-flops and bare feet to any other sort of shoe.”
“A girl who knew what she wanted.”
“Yes.” He took her hand, led her back to the edge, drawing them both down so they could rest their backs against a boulder, their legs hanging over the edge. “She definitely knew what she wanted.”
Silence fell between them for a long time.
His gaze was on the scenery, absorbing the peace, the smells, the . . . feeling of calm, of being small in a big world that always came over him in this place.
“Will you tell me more about her?”
He glanced down to see that Soph was holding herself carefully, as though she were bracing herself for rejection. But he couldn’t reject this woman with the shadows in her eyes, who also wore such strong armor that he’d hardly had a glimpse of what was beneath. “She was my best friend,” he said simply. “We were together as friends and then partners for so long that I almost didn’t know how to be myself without her. We were like two of those trees planted too close, trunks intertwining as they grew instead of being separate beings. And she was always so . . . big.”
Sophie took his hand. “Big how?”
Rob smiled. “She had a big personality, could light up a room, and fuck, but she could talk.” A laugh. “But she could take over, too, dominate a conversation, never back down from a fight, and boom”—another laugh—“her temper was something to behold.”
“I think I would have liked her,” Soph murmured.
“I know you would have.” He ran his fingers over her palm, the inside of her wrist. “Everyone did.”
“And then she was gone.”
A nod. “And then I had to find a way to live again.”
“I bet that was . . . well, hard seems like such an inadequate word.”
He smoothed back her hair. “I bet you know something about having to do the same.”
She went still. Like a statue. Like the boulder they were braced against.
And he th
ought he’d blown it, that he’d pushed when he should have just given, should have shown patience.
Then she slumped down, shifting her hips to the side as she rested her head on his lap.
It was his turn to freeze, to go perfectly still.
She was facing away from him, her legs curled almost like a question mark, her shoulder against the ground, her head laid across his thigh.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I have.”
He thought she was going to leave it at that, and the admission was enough. God, he knew it was so much more than anything he deserved. But then she sighed, and then she began talking.
And then his heart broke for her.
“My real name isn’t Sophie,” she whispered. “It’s Candace.”
“That’s pretty, too.”
A nod. “It is, and I liked my name. For a while, anyway. I used to watch old episodes of Full House and loved that my name was the same as the actor who played my favorite character.” She glanced back at him. “DJ was awesome.”
He smiled, gave in to the urge to run his fingers through her hair.
She looked out at the rise in the distance, the acres and acres of green trees that filled the basin they were sitting above. But she didn’t stop him from touching her. Instead, she was quiet again, and he had the sense that she was sorting her thoughts, figuring out how much to tell him, or perhaps how to tell him.
“I didn’t change my name because I didn’t like it, or because I wanted to change it to become more Hollywood.” Her top shoulder rose and fell on a sigh. “I changed it—no, I was forced to change it when I went into protection.”
He frowned.
A bead of moisture dripped onto his hand and for a second, he thought it was from the trees overhead. Then he realized his thigh was damp as well. She was crying. Because he’d forced her to share something.
Fuck.
He slid his hands beneath her, pulled her up against him, and held her tight. “Don’t tell me,” he whispered. “You don’t need to tell me, not when it’s hurting you.”
Twin tracks of tears marring that beautiful face, making her gray-blue eyes look like the shining waves of the deep ocean. But instead of nodding or agreeing with him, she smiled slightly and touched his cheek. “You’re a good man, you know that?”
Another tear fell.
“Soph,” he groaned. She was killing him. He’d hardly begun to know this woman, and yet the sight of her in pain absolutely undid him.
“I’ve always thought that my past would make it so that anyone with any good in them would turn away, would look at me with disgust.” She swallowed, pressed a finger to his lips when he began to protest. “But I’ve never felt about another person the way I feel about you. I hardly know you, and yet”—she dashed away the tears—“I know you. I know you loved your wife and that you like tea. I know you must have let Misty teach you how to knit long ago, based on your skills displayed during class. I know that your sister looked at you with real love in her eyes and not mere sisterly affection. I know that you’ve been a good friend to Finn and Shannon because both of them have no shortage of nice things to say about you. Not to mention Rylie.” Her lips quirked. “And I know that you’ve touched me gently, helped me just because you’re a decent person, and . . . I know I want to bring you close, to let you in, to not just be this pretty posterboard of emotions and feelings but without any real depth, that I projected to the world.”
She paused, chest heaving, pulse pounding against where his hand rested on her nape.
Then she straightened, said, “I have spent so much of my life locking my feelings down, determined not to feel, not to remember. It was easy to act, easy to channel my emotions purely into a script, because it wasn’t me. I could keep thinking I was ice and untouchable and completely neutral because it was the scripts, the characters, the lines I’d memorize, and not me.” Her shoulders slumped. “But it was always me. I’m not a computer to be programed, those emotions had to come from somewhere. It was just safer for me to pretend that they weren’t from me. Because if they were from me, then I’d have to remember what it felt like to—” Her throat worked then her voice lightened. “Anyway, but then I came here, and I almost ran you over, and it was like all of a sudden I could feel.”
He kissed the finger pressed to his mouth, gently peeled it away. “That’s my specialty.”
Her eyes danced with amusement. “Nearly getting run over.”
“Exactly.” A shrug. “Well, that, and creating all sorts of annoying emotions.”
She laughed. “Okay, that’s definitely true.” A giggle. “It’s like a couple of days with you in this town, and everything I thought I knew had gone by the wayside.”
“Must be something in the water.”
Warm eyes, a soft hand on his cheek. “No, it’s you.”
And then she kissed him.
Fourteen
The Dark
Soph
She could kiss this man for the rest of her life, just spend an eternity sipping at his mouth, stroking her tongue along his, reveling in the feel of his hands running over her body.
But she needed to finish her story.
Pushing lightly on his chest, she pulled her lips from his and dropped her forehead to his chest, her breath coming in rapid puffs, desire making her skin feel too tight to fit over her skeleton.
He groaned, his fingers slipping under her T-shirt and skating along the skin of her back.
That touch cleared her mind.
Tight skin. Painful skin. Scars that would never go away.
“Let me go,” she said, careful to keep her voice neutral, especially when she wanted to shove him away, to scream at him to release her that instant.
She didn’t show anyone her back.
Not anyone. Not to a lover. Not in a film.
She’d had it written into her contract for a body double, never wore backless dresses.
Because of the scars.
Not because she was ashamed of them, per se, but because of what they represented. Who they represented.
Rob, to his credit, immediately released her, scooting back to give her space.
“It’s not you,” she whispered. “It’s just—”
Then she shored up every last bit of courage she possessed and lifted the back of her shirt, revealing the last of her insecurities. She’d leave them all up on this mountain—her shame of the scars, the armor she’d used to close herself off from the world, the pain of her past.
Over.
Done.
Peeling that lid fully off and tossing the fucker over the cliff.
“These,” she said.
His fingers brushed the skin of her back, rippled and hardened, still pink and abused-looking even all these years later. “You’re still beautiful. I don’t care about these.”
“I don’t either.” She put up her hand when he started to reply. “I don’t care that I have them,” she said. “I care what they remind me of, what was taken from me.” Teeth pressing into her bottom lip. “And what I’ll never get back.”
Fingers lacing through hers, tugging her to his side, his other hand rubbing up and down her spine. “What won’t you get back, sweetheart?”
So. Many. Things.
But things he would only begin to understand if she told him about them. “When I was thirteen, I realized the truth about what my family was involved in.” She inhaled, released a shaky breath. “Drugs. Violence. Prostitution rings. I always just thought I was lucky growing up. We lived in a big house. My dad worked from home a lot. My mom was beautiful and always dressed in the absolute latest fashion.” A shrug. “I had any toy you could think of, nice clothes, professional haircuts. It was luxurious, and I was absolutely spoiled. I didn’t want for anything. The moment it was mentioned, or I saw a commercial or a printed ad for something I might want, someone went out and bought it for me. Same with meals. We had a full-time chef at the house, and he would cook anything I wanted.” Her lips pre
ssed flat, released. “I never cleaned a room, a toilet, put a dish in the sink. I was indulged to the extreme.”
“What happened?”
“My father got into some financial trouble—a drug deal went wrong, and he needed capital or the entire operation would collapse.” She forced herself to hold his stare, remembering how quickly everything had changed, how the staff had gone, her nice things taken away. How he’d— “Turned out, I was the capital.”
Rob’s eyes darkened, but he didn’t interrupt, just held her hand, his thumb rubbing lightly on her palm, and let her talk.
“It sounds like a bad movie,” she whispered. “Like some role I would never ever agree to take on.” She forced the words out through numb lips. “But the truth, the horrible, shattering truth is that my father sold off my virginity to the highest bidder.”
Rob cursed, his hand clenching around hers.
But still, he didn’t speak.
Which meant she did. “It turned out that he was under investigation by the FBI. They had been the ones to make that deal go awry, that had forced him to . . . well, find other ways to finance his operation. No.” She shook herself. “No. It’s not their fault, not really. The truth is he used and discarded me like he did the rest of the women in his life.”
“Soph.”
“I know. I know,” she whispered. “But it turned out, the FBI had shit timing. They raided the house.” Her shoulders had crept up around her ears. She forced them to relax. “After I’d been sent off for my night with the buyer. And during the raid, my parents didn’t go quietly like they expected. Instead, they went down guns blazing, Hollywood shoot-out style with the SWAT teams, taking out the people who were supposed to retrieve me and leaving me with the man who’d—” Her eyes closed, the darkness and pain and fear so deeply entrenched that, for several minutes, it took every bit of her concentration to just breathe.
“How long?” he asked softly.
“What?” she whispered.
“How long were you there?”
She winced.
He cursed.
“But eventually, the task force uncovered the payment, traced it back to the man who’d purchased me.” A beat. “They got me out, brought me to the hospital, and eventually into protection. I became a key witness in their case. Not that they needed me,” she added. “As these things are wont to happen, before the actual trial, the man who’d bought me, who’d raped and abused and imprisoned me was found dead in his cell of a suspected suicide.” She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt, straightening it. “But the agent who took me under his wing, who first looked at me when I was healing mentally and physically, suggested that was improbable. More likely, he said, the other prisoners had caught wind of his affinity for young kids and they’d punished him as they saw fit.”