“He took her…” My words were muffled against his chest. Tears welled in my eyes. I’d never let myself cry for the things my father put me through. Put my family through. Put his victims and their loved ones through. I never grieved for my girlfriend, the one who was taken away from me by my own blood. I never let myself feel, because every time I thought about it, the darkness threatened to swallow me whole. “Right under my nose… I couldn’t stop him. I had no idea. The things he did…”
A tear slipped down my face, and it felt so fucked up that I snapped my mouth shut in an attempt to bury all the emotions back down. My sadness washed away, only to be replaced by anger. I could feel the way my gaze sharpened like knives as I lifted my head. I wasn’t angry at Ford. No, definitely not at him. But this anger had nowhere to go and I didn’t know what to do with it now that I’d set it free.
So… I was going to take it out on him. Even being aware of this wouldn’t stop me.
The next thing I needed to do was push him away. How had he gotten so close? How had he found the loose thread in my defense and gotten close enough to pull it, unraveling me in a way that no one had been able to before?
“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have,” Ford said, trying to reason with the anger inside of me.
His voice was so soft yet still stern, it made my head swim.
I needed to feel grounded… needed to feel him.
I didn’t resist the pull I felt to him, and I breathed a small sigh as my forehead came to rest against his, our noses brushing.
“I pushed it all down. Cut it all off after…” I dropped my gaze, insecure and scared about letting this part of myself free. He pressed his head harder into mine, forcing me to look back into his eyes. “I haven’t felt since I lost her. Haven’t let myself…”
“Is that how you want to go on?” he asked.
I didn’t really know what to say to that. I’d never had anyone ask me to be so open like this. Never had someone give me the words that I’d obliviously been craving to hear for ten damn years. Never had someone care enough to ask the question I didn’t even know needed to be asked.
Never had someone force me to look deeper inside of myself to find the truth… my truth.
Not just a place I put myself in because I was running from my past. Not a feeling I told myself to have because that was how it was supposed to be.
I was a mess. Confused. And completely clueless about this new thing that was happening inside of me.
Would it have been too cheesy to tell him that he’d woken up something inside of me and that I wanted nothing more than to give myself over to it? That I was eager for it. And how I wondered if he wanted it just as much as I wanted him to want it.
No… fuck no, I couldn’t say that shit to him. That was a level of dumb that I couldn’t let myself fall into.
But what could I say instead to let him know that I wasn’t oblivious to what was happening, I was just… inexperienced?
The internal me cringed at that.
Ford took over, the fingers of the hand over my heart curling, twisting the fabric as he held on and pulled me closer. His lips moved over mine, tentative kisses that were still somehow very sure. Like he was testing the waters of what he knew he wanted.
But did I? Is that what he was asking?
Did I know the answer to that?
Part of me must have since I’d pulled him closer.
“I want this,” I whispered against his lips.
My eyes fell closed and I let him hold me up as he kissed me harder. I gave myself to him, trusting him to take care of me.
And then I was kissing him back, my lips parting, inviting him in and hoping he’d accept.
18
Austin
I didn’t know how things were supposed to go now, but playing it cool was something I was finding hard to do.
We’d kissed in the barn.
Yep. I’d kissed him and he’d kissed me back. Okay, sure, there had been a lot of me spewing shit I hadn’t intended to talk about— ever— but it had poured out of me after I’d started. And then we kissed some more. But then it stopped, and he walked me back to the house, where I finished making dinner. We sat down in the living room to eat, the fire roaring, making the light of the flames dance around in a way that made the atmosphere feel almost romantic.
