Chapter 65
NOW
Paloma
“P?” Bennett’s voice mixes past and present in my memory. “Just—”
He keeps speaking to me, but I can’t make out the words. They’re more like distant sounds. I’m in his room. A pang of loneliness hits and I’m desperate to chase it away.
“What do you need?” Bennett’s gravelly voice breaks through the pounding in my head. “Paloma, please—”
I yank at my dress, nearly ripping the seams at my chest, until I manage to pull it off. Standing before him semi-naked, my head swims.
“I want you.”
Bennett shakes his head at me, brow furrowing and eyes turning to turquoise wells of pain, so deep I find myself lost in them.
“No, P,” he begs. His eyes dart around, hand flexing—like he’s looking for Seven. His eyes close for a moment and he breathes deep. “Let’s talk. You’re upset—please—”
“I told you. You asked me what I need. What I want. I need you.” I reach for him again, planning to grip his button-down hard and rip it down the middle so I can smooth my hands against his chest, the tuffs of curls and strong hard muscle beneath. “Just this—”
He steps back again, nearly tripping as his shoulder hits the wall and his hands jut out to grasp my wrists.
I freeze instantly and just that makes him swallow hard and gasp in pain. Like my reaction to his touch is as effective as a physical blow.
He drops my hands, raising his in the air like he’s surrendering, like I’m pointing a loaded gun at him.
In a way, maybe I am.
Tears work their way into my eyes as I look at him, the beautiful man I’ve destroyed with my ugliness. And yet, I can’t fucking stop myself from reaching for him again.
“Paloma, please. This isn’t what you need right now.”
“It is,” I try to growl, but it comes out as a breathy sob. “Please.”
“Don’t do this, P. I’m begging.” He is begging, pleading for me not to use my one-time ask for something that will hurt us both, leave both of us in ruins. I know neither one of us will recover from the aftermath of what I’m pleading for.
“It’s just sex,” I snap.
“It’s not,” he breathes. “Not with us. You know that. Tell me you know that.” The words seem as painful for him to say as they are for me to hear.
“What does it matter?” I spit. “This will mean nothing when you’re inside of me, Ben.” I try to make my tone different, to bring out the breathy smoky seductive voice I keep on me like a knife. My protection. “I’ll make it so fucking good for you.”
Devastation settles over his features.
It’s like watching myself from a cage, unable to stop the fury and anger from hurting the one person I love more than anything. The one person that’s ever cared for me.
I wait to see what he’ll do. Hoping he’ll just give in.
Instead, I watch him build his armor, quiet but stable. The constant shore of unwavering love to the tumultuous sea of my own self-hatred.
“You’re upset because of what Ethan said,” he begins, eyes downcast. His voice is matter-of-fact, like he’s working through it aloud, trying to understand. “Maybe embarrassed, too, even if you shouldn’t be. But him talking about you as a kid? It hurt you, and you won’t tell me why.”
I flinch.
His voice has no emotion; his face is steel as he speaks. “You’re upset because of me knowing about your past. Maybe because of your mom, or what Ethan said about her . . . reputation. About the trailer park you lived in—”
“S-stop it.” I manage to find my voice, backing away as he starts to advance toward me. “Bennett—”
“Someone hurt you in that house. Maybe more than one person, and just talking about that triggered you. You want sex because it’ll distract you. Make you feel better—”
Bennett watches my face intensely, and I see the slow realization overtake him. His eyes flare.
“No—fuck, Paloma.” His voice breaks over my name.
“Y-you . . . you want sex because it makes you feel worse?” Bennett’s knees give out and he falls onto the edge of the bed.
His breath shudders faster, eyes shining like he might cry.
“All this time . . . You thought that . . . that you deserve that? To feel bad?”
I slam my hands over my ears, tears flowing.
“Stop.” I want to scream, but I sound like a whimpering child. No, no, no —I grip hands into my hair and pull slightly. “Please, I—”
“Shhh,” Bennett tries to soothe me, reaching out to hold me up, and I realize I’ve stumbled toward him. His arms wrap around me, hands gently finding mine and pulling them from my scalp. He tucks them into his, our fingers interlocking. “Please, love. Just breathe.”
I do. He pulls me slowly, like coaxing a dog whose been beaten and chained, into his lap. Desperate to save it, as Bennett’s always been desperate to save me.
I press myself into his chest, ear to his heart, and breathe.
He’s crying, I realize, sobs wracking his body. It makes my hands go numb.
“Bennett?” I ask, pulling back. But he only holds on tighter.
“Paloma,” he breathes into my hair, hands pressing like he’s memorizing my body, inch by inch. “God—I didn’t know. I thought . . .” he stalls, but I hear him anyway.
He thought when we were apart I used sex as an outlet, a distraction.
But I wielded it like a razor, crawling deeper into that dark pit every time.
And Bennett stood there and watched it happen, thinking he wasn’t enough.
Thinking I wanted a release, just trying to feel good—and was looking for something he couldn’t give. Something I wouldn’t take from him.
I know he blames himself entirely, as if he stood back and forced me to go upstairs and into dark hallways and further down the rabbit hole of my self-hatred.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into his skin, pressing so I can feel his neck against my lips. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just want you, just you. Just this. I’m sorry.”
There are broken pieces of us scattered on the floor. Raw. Vulnerable. And for a second, the thought of running and hiding feels like a comfort. I want to—
But then he kisses me. And it makes everything right, even just for a moment.
We stay there for a long time before Bennett stands and carries me to the bathroom. He turns on the bathtub and pulls open the drawer of all my favorite soaps and hair products he keeps around.
It feels silly, to be so comforted by the idea of a bubble bath at the hands of Bennett Reiner, but as soon as the overly warm water conceals my naked body there’s a loosening in my chest.
Bennett stands for a moment, easily taking up too much space in the small room, still in his suit pants and button-down, sleeves rolled up, hands tucked deep into his pockets.
“I should . . .” He trails off, eyes downcast.
My hand reaches out, wet against the dark fabric of his pants. “Stay?”
Bennett nods, eyes finding mine as he kneels by the lip of the tub, his palm touching my cheek. I nuzzle into it with a soft, contented sigh. And then it’s nothing but the sound of water moving as I shift beneath the sudsy curtain.
“I was an only child,” I suddenly confess. My eyes shoot down, watching my own fingers play and swirl. “I don’t really talk about my mom—and I don’t want to. She didn’t care about me, never protected me. My childhood wasn’t . . . it was bad, Bennett.”
Bad is an understatement. But telling him this is hard enough.
“My mom was in trouble a lot—drugs, violent boyfriends, anything you can think of. And sometimes the cops that came were . . . ‘friends’ of my mother. Sometimes they were worse than the assholes she brought home. And . . .” I shake my head, words trailing away.
But the pain-soaked intensity of them hangs behind.
Bennett’s hand reaches out, grasping mine with a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
“Don’t. Not if it hurts.”
He seems to wince at his own words, shaking his head like he knows. It all hurts.
“There was someone, though, who was kind to me when we met.” I want to tell him. I want to let the name spill from my lips, but I can’t. “He was older than me. He knew I’d been sleeping in a house with no power in the dead of winter or sneaking into the school to sleep.”
“You slept . . . at the school?”
“All the time.” I laugh, no humor in it. “It’s . . . it was warm. And no one tried to get in my room.” I stop there, swallowing hard. By the time I met Ethan I didn’t trust anyone—man, woman, child. It was me versus everyone else.
“Goddamn it,” Bennett mutters, eyes darting down before wiping at his eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know why that . . .”
I stay silent.
“I just . . . picturing you alone and scared, and sleeping in a fucking school?” His voice is still whisper quiet, soft and gentle despite the harsher language.
“It’s okay. It wasn’t that bad.”
He shakes his head, eyes darting to me like he wants to tear those words from my mouth and lay his anger into them.
I wait and Bennett calms, stays quiet while I tell the rest. But the tears slowly tracking from his ocean-blue eyes never quite stop.
The words pour from me like water, and he absorbs them all. The unshakable, constant shore bowing to my fraught waves.
I explain Ethan’s treatment—how his demeanor ran so hot and cold. How he was the first adult to take care of me, how I trusted him. The way he showed me affection when I’d never had any before. I might as well have been touch starved.
Desperate for anything. And he knew that, used it against me.
“I’d never had anyone pay attention to me like that,” I say, voice bitter and resentful.
No amount of time changes the way I feel about myself at fifteen, sixteen, and so on—desperate and so stupid.
“I was grateful, that he seemed to care for me. I thought I should be glad . . . but then he changed, and I didn’t realize he’d never looked at me like a daughter. ”
The words dredge up the usual nausea, tenfold at having to confess this to Bennett.
“He—” My throat closes and I wipe away a few silent tears. “I didn’t want it, any of it. But I wanted someone to . . .” God, this hurts most of all. “I just wanted someone to care about me. Even if I didn’t want to be with him. And I didn’t.”