He made a noise in the back of his throat, telling me remembered.
‘He, uh—’ I laid my palm flat on his chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart. The steady rhythm rippled up my arm, and I took a deep breath.
‘You don’t have to—’ he started, brows pinched as he watched me struggle to find the words.
I cut his words off with a kiss. Like before, it only took a few seconds for him to take control and pull my body even closer, resting a hand on the small of my back, inching closer to my butt.
‘I want to,’ I breathed against his soft lips.
We settled back on the pillows. My gaze dipped back to where my hand splayed out on his chest, unable to look him in the eye as I tried to search for the words to explain my childhood.
‘He wasn’t a good person.’ That felt like the understatement of the year, but I let out a soft breath as I let my words flow. ‘They met when mum was eighteen. She worked at the local pub and he was the guy that used to sit in the corner for every shift and chat with her. For weeks he’d sit in that spot for hours and after she would close, he’d walk her to her car and ask her out. She’d say no every time. But he kept coming back. Slowly, he started chipping away at her resolve. Making her laugh, telling her how beautiful she was, and giving her all of his attention.’
The corners of George’s eyes creased, confusion clouding his blue eyes.
‘Sounds like the perfect start to a love story, right?’ My lips turned up in a pained smile. His hand on my butt squeezed. The gesture offering me an odd sort of comfort.
‘He was ten years older than her and earned a lot of money from selling a shit ton of investments. He was a powerful man. Another reason mum caved. This rich, handsome man was coming into her pub and spending all of his time with her. She thought she’d won the lottery. They got married four months later.’
George inhaled sharply. ‘Fuck, that’s quick.’
‘In that short time, he convinced her to quit her job, moveout of her flat and into his house. A month later, she found out she was pregnant with me. In half a year, he had utterly flipped her life upside down, and she thought she was happy. She became dependent on him for everything. If she wanted to go to the fucking grocery store, she had to ask him for the money to do it. He’d make comments about her body, her intelligence. I only started hearing them properly when I was seven and he called her a “fat ugly cunt” over breakfast.’ My tone became detached as I carried on, even though I could feel the anger vibrating off of George’s body. ‘He’d call her names and belittle her in front of people. Then he started coming home late, usually smelling of other women. Sometimes he would bring flowers, a shitty apology.’
‘What did your mum do?’ he ground out.
I scoffed lightly. ‘What could she do? He had her completely helpless. She didn’t have any money of her own. He controlled it all. She’d lived nearly ten years with him slowly and surely picking away at her. He’d convinced her it was normal. After a while, he didn’t even bother hiding the fact that he was cheating. He’d even bring women back to the house, fuck them right there in the living room and go up stairs and crawl into her bed.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ He closed his eyes for a beat before opening them and pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. ‘No wonder your view of relationships is skewed. That’s not normal, sweetheart, that’s not—fuck, I don’t know what to say right now.’
I let my eyelids flutter closed, feeling the way he touched me with such reverence. Despite how thoroughly he had ravaged me only an hour ago.
‘She stayed,' I went on, pushing past how my chest tightened with every word. ‘And a little piece of me always hated her for that. But I hate myself more for thinking that she should have just been stronger. Tried harder. I neverunderstood.’ Tears dropped down my cheeks. When I got older and saw how the other kids' parents at school treated each other, I quickly realised it wasn’t normal. Some kids even loved getting picked up by their dad. They’d race to the school gates, excitement propelling their legs to run faster than ever.
‘You were a child. You shouldn’t have had to understand that shit,’ George rasped. ‘Did he ever—’ He let out a pained breath, not wanting to give voice to the question I knew was burning in his gut.
‘Ask.’
If it was possible, he pulled my body even closer. Not a spare inch of space separated us. Thighs pressed against thighs, my breasts plastered to his pecs. ‘Did he ever hurt you?’ Those words came out with venom I’d never heard from him.
I hesitated. ‘Not intentionally.’
‘What does that mean?’ came his swift reply.
‘I got so angry at him one day when he was yelling at her, calling her every single name you could imagine. I threw a glass vase on the floor. It shattered everywhere. It got him to stop screaming, but when he was barging out of the room, he barrelled past me and I fell on top of the broken glass.’
And here my romance book loving brain thought growling was only something fictional men did. Consider me proved wrong. ‘That sounds pretty intentional to me.’
My fingers traced a line up his chest, past his neck, and threaded into the hair at the base of his skull. ‘If he wanted to hurt me. He wouldn’t have thought twice.’
‘That doesn’t make me any happier, sweetheart,’ he rumbled. ‘How did your mum leave?’
‘Fallon.’ Her name was the one slice of happiness in my history.
His eyes quirked up. Obviously not expecting that answer.
‘One day, I went for a sleep over at her house and told her everything. It poured out of me like water, and we were only twelve years old. There wasn’t really anything either of us could do. But it felt nice to tell someone and have them listen. The next day she came into school and handed me a stack of flyers and papers, information she’d found on the internet and printed off for me. There were numbers for women’s shelters and places mum could go. I honestly didn’t think even if I showed them to mum she’d listen. So, Fallon came home with me one day after school, Dad had gone out for the night and mum was nearly catatonic in her bedroom. Fallon stormed into her room and gave her a piece of her mind. I’m not sure my mum knew what was happening when Fallon started screeching at her out of the blue. Mum was so lethargic at that point, she couldn’t even say anything back. Fallon went to my bedroom and started packing a bag for me. She was all intent on taking me away. Fuck what my mum did.’
The corners of George’s lips turned up. ‘What was her plan?’
