“Do you want me to?” He wasn’t sure what she’d want from him right now. This was all new to him. All he had was his gut, and his trust that she would tell him if he was doing something wrong.
Ivy nodded and made room for him. He undressed slowly, giving her lots of time to change her mind. The water poured over her head, pulling down her hair, making it cloak her face, hiding her from him.
When he got in the shower, her gaze lowered to their feet. How could he get her to stop that habit?
“Ivy.” He nudged her chin up with his finger.
A hiccup escaped her as she tried to stifle a sob. Water droplets dripped off her eyelashes as she looked up at him.
“I—I went with him,” she stammered through trembling lips. “That night, I was excited. I’d had more than a bit to drink, and I was feeling good, relaxed. He was nice to me. I remember—” She made a choking sound that cracked his heart in two. “I remember being relieved that I wore nice underwear. Lace. I went up to that room with him because I wanted to.” Her shoulders slumped, and she covered her face with both hands, sobbing into them.
Wrapping his arms around her, he simply, helplessly held her, everything in his body aching, as if it was a sponge to her pain. Abdominal muscles cramped, lungs constricted, breath heaved. Her body convulsed against his, and he gladly absorbed the shocks, letting them rattle him like a storm.
When her sobbing slowed, he set her back against the tiled wall and dipped low so she was focused on him and not the memories in her head.
“Ivy, I need you to hear me right now.” He swiped her wet hair away from her face and waited until she looked at him fully. “For a long time, you’ve been carrying all this, mostly by yourself. And I can only imagine how hard that’s been. But the fact that you trusted me enough to share this means a lot. It means everything,” he said sincerely. “And you need to know you’re not alone. I’m here now, so I want you to listen to me. Listen and believe: What happened to you was not your fault. You did nothing wrong. Nothing you wore, drank, said, or did gave him the right to hurt you, or even fucking touch you. Ivy—” He kept her chin tipped up when she once again tried to find the floor with her gaze. “Nobody asks to be hurt. Nobody invites it in. Nobody. This was not your fault.”
She blinked up at him. Water and tears were one. Sean hadn’t considered killing anyone in a very long time. That violent part of his life was long over. But a bloodlust flowed through him now, and he knew he could, very easily, if he’d had the chance to get his hands on the men who’d done this to her.
As it stood, there was nothing he could do now but hold and love her.Love. The emotion hit him like a punch to the solar plexus.
He loved her. Had loved her almost from the moment they’d met. He saw it crystal clear now. And someone hadhurtthe woman he loved.
The beast inside him raged, but the man in the shower quietly held her.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Under the spray of the shower, with Sean holding her and looking intently into her eyes, every emotion and every feeling she’d ever suppressed rushed to the surface.
And she wasn’t sorry, because the frontrunner of them all was love. She recognized it only because it was identical to the first time she realized what loving someone was truly like.
On her tenth birthday, her parents had left for another trip.
Her nana had found her crying on her bed. Instead of making a fuss about it, or even trying to comfort her, she’d pulled Ivy to her feet, drove her to the mall, and bought her the prettiest lavender colored dress Ivy had ever seen. When they got home, Nana had served a traditional English high tea. Wearing her new dress while sitting with her grandmother and sipping tea from fancy cups and eating dainty cucumber sandwiches, love had filled Ivy’s heart to bursting.
That exact same feeling was flowing through her right now. A full-to-the-brim kind of love. It propelled Ivy into Sean’s arms, knocking him back. He caught his balance quickly, and her with it, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tightly to his chest.
People had told her it wasn’t her fault before. Hope, Joel, her counselor. She knew it was true, but the back of her mind always niggled withwhat-ifs.
What if she’d paid more attention during the self-defense classes in high school? What if she hadn’t gone to the party? What if she’d worn something different? What if she hadn’t started talking to Ethan?
Those what-ifshad nearly killed her. She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d needed to hear all of them destroyed by Sean’s affirmations. No idea how much she’d neededhim.
She had new what-ifs now.
What ifthe problem was never something she’d done? What if the problem was Ethan all along?The problem was how he’d never learned to be a man like Sean or Gabe or Joel or Carter, or any of the men she knew who would never have done what Ethan did.
Lifting up to her toes, she pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. “Thank you.”
She wanted to say more. Wanted to tell him about her overstuffed heart, and all her feelings. But she’d been the one who insisted this thing between them stay casual. What an idiot she’d been, determined not to put any labels or pressures on their friends-with-benefits arrangement. Now she’d put herself into a situation where she couldn’t drop the L word in the shower after an emotionally charged night. No matter how much her heart was screaming with it.
It would have to wait. Wait to see if she still had the overstuffed-heart feeling in the morning. Wait to see whether, after all was said and done, he’d still look at her the way he was looking at her now. As if he’d burn down the whole world to keep her safe. She’d wait until the exact right time and say the words out loud. Words she hadn’t spoken to anyone but her nana in decades. Maybe ever. Not even to Hope.
And for the first time, she was excited about it, because suddenly love didn’t seem as scary as it once had.
Instead of saying what was bursting in her heart, she gave Sean the next biggest thing she could think of. Her trust.
She pressed her mouth to his again, savoring his lips.
