Chapter 16 #2
She arched up off the bed, her orgasm claiming her, hard and fast. He moved away from her, and she heard the sound of a condom package tearing.
And then he was with her again. In her. Kissing her as he drove them both right to the edge again.
She was dizzy, falling, spiraling. There were colors flashing behind her eyes, and a cavern of something widening inside her.
She came again, squeezing him as he let go, growling against her mouth as he lost control.
She took a deep, gasping breath, and only then did she realize that she was crying. Sobbing.
West wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up against him as she buried her face in his chest and wept. Like a child. Like an abandoned child.
She had never let herself cry. Not when she was hiding under tables at a strip club, not when she was alone in a Miami apartment at night.
Not when she had been left at the top of a mountain.
Not when she had spent hours in the cold hiding in a tiny, abandoned cabin.
Because crying never solved anything. It only clouded her eyes, made her throat hurt.
It only made her weak, and she couldn’t afford to be weak.
But West was strong right now, and he was holding her.
Holding her together, keeping her from flying apart.
His chest was wet with her tears, and she felt silly and …
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing her back, his fingertips tracing the line of her spine. “It’s okay, Cass.”
She looked up at him, and the first stupid thing she could think to say was: “You’re not supposed to take care of me. You take care of everybody else.”
There was a shocked sort of look in his eyes. “Thanks,” he said. “For … for recognizing that. But I want to take care of you.” He pushed her hair off her face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. It’s just … a release, I guess. And feeling …
Well, I guess this is the thing,” she said, moving away from him and sitting up, ignoring the strange, dull ache in her chest. “I don’t feel any kind of uncertainty with you.
You were completely honest with me. About everything.
About what kind of relationship we could have and couldn’t have.
It’s totally settled. And I don’t feel any sense of impending doom or anything like that. I just feel safe with you.”
He laughed, but the sound was rusty. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said they felt safe with me,” he said. “Usually, I’m regarded with a fair amount of suspicion.”
“Well, those people are stupid.”
One side of his mouth lifted into a grin. “You’re way too good for my ego, Cassidy Wilder.”
“Well, we can’t have that.”
“No,” he said. “Definitely not.”
She balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyes. “I really don’t want to be traumatized.”
“I don’t think anyone does. But you didn’t choose it, and I get why that makes you angry. Because you got left with all the baggage.”
“Sometimes she would leave for days at a time,” Cassidy said. “And I would wonder if she was gone for good. The worst time was when she left me at her boyfriend’s house. And he was always drunk and scary.”
Tension gathered between West’s eyebrows. “Jesus Christ. I’m sorry. I tried to feel some sort of empathy for your mom. But whatever was happening with her, there’s no justification for what she did. She put you in so much danger. She put you at risk and …”
“I know. The thing you said earlier, about your parents loving you … I really do feel like she didn’t.
I mean, maybe you are right. Maybe she left me because she knew it was the best thing.
But she never did check on me again. I just think I was an extra bag she was carrying.
And it got too heavy. So she decided that whatever I contained, I wasn’t worth the effort.
She dropped me off, lightened the load, and never looked back.
And that’s hard. That is really hard. Because it’s difficult to see yourself as anything other than a burden when your own mother treats you like that. ”
“You’re not a burden. You changed your brothers’ lives. You realize that, don’t you?”
“They changed mine.”
“Think about my reputation. And how long it’s followed me.
I got my act together when I was older because I had some responsibilities—my parents, and the Wild West Show.
Without you, your brothers just had the homestead, and each other.
And they were all hooligans. They were tearing this town up.
Until you came along, they didn’t have any reason to clean up their act.
The way they changed when you rolled into town, Cassidy, that is the stuff of legend.
Even if people still thought the Wilders were trouble, they had to acknowledge that they took care of their own. They took care of you.”
That was a revelation. It washed over her like a balm. It healed something that she hadn’t known was so very broken. Tears tracked down her cheeks, and she clung to West again, laughing through her tears. “I really never cry.”
“I believe it,” he said.
“It’s just that you broke me.”
He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “The last thing I want to do is break you, sweetheart. I swear.”
“Don’t worry. It was in a good way. There was all kinds of stuff that I just hadn’t dealt with. Hell, it’s still not dealt with. But you know.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“When do you think I’ll feel normal?”
“Never,” he said.
Disappointment made her stomach drop.
“Never?”
“No. But I don’t actually think that’s the goal. I … I’ve been looking for something. Maybe it is feeling normal. Feeling good enough. I don’t know. But I wonder if maybe nobody does.”
“You know who probably does?” Cassidy asked.
“Who?”
“Danielle. Because it’s always the worst people who never think about why they do anything, or if they need to change.”
He laughed. “That is true. That is very, very true.”
“I did bring an overnight bag …” She said it cautiously. Because maybe he didn’t want her to stay the whole night. Maybe he just wanted sex and to send her on her way. She was being awfully presumptuous.
“Oh, you’re staying. You’re definitely staying. If I only have you until Christmas, then I’m keeping you for as much of it as possible.”