Chapter 22
twenty-two
. . .
SUTTON
“I am in shock,” Aspen said dramatically, leaning against the counter next to me while I fixed my lipstick. “I never would’ve pegged Lane as one for PDA.”
“He’s not normally,” I said. “At least, he hadn’t been back in college. I don’t know what got into him tonight.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s about. Damn. Time.” She punctuated the final three words with three sharp claps.
Face set mostly back to normal thanks to a wet towel, a lot of powder, and reapplication of my lipstick, I turned to Aspen.
“Am I crazy to go for this?” I asked. “You know, given the whole…”
“Addie situation?” she finished for me. I nodded.
“Look, there’s never a right time, I don’t think.
With Crew, I was only supposed to be in town for a few months to see if I could crack that case, right?
And we took hit after hit, but he was by my side for all of it.
Picking me up, dusting me off, pushing me forward.
I’m stronger with him at my side, and vice versa.
And look at Finn and Reagan! They went through some shit this summer and came out whole and happy and so in love it almost grosses me out sometimes. ”
I chuckled. “Bit hypocritical.”
She swatted at me. “My point is, that man is gone for you, and you’d be insane to deny yourself the luxury of his love. Especially since you haven’t been able to let go of yours all these years.”
Aspen was right, of course. This was Lane we were talking about. The most steadfast man I’d ever met. If my heart was safe with anyone, it was with him.
Still, something stood in my way. A very large something in the shape of the boy who violated me and the night that changed me forever.
“What if…” I started, then stopped, shaking my head. Now was not the time or place for this conversation.
Naturally, Aspen wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily.
“What if, what?”
I downcast my gaze, twisting my fingers together nervously.
“I haven’t been with anyone since my rape,” I blurted, then slapped my hand over my mouth. We were alone here, but I couldn’t believe I’d said that so casually.
Although, since I’d opened up to Aspen and Reagan at the tailgate about it, I felt…lighter. Like some of the power that night held over me had been lifted.
“Okay, and you’re afraid you forgot how?” Aspen asked. “I mean, I think it’s like riding a bike, Sutton, but I’m sure Lane knows what he’s—”
“No, I’m not worried about that! I…” How did I say this in a way that made sense? That didn’t make me sound like a weak coward? “I’ve tried. But every time I get close, I just…” I trailed off again, shaking my head. “I can’t.”
Aspen’s eyes widened, as if all the things I wasn’t saying finally clicked into place.
“There seems to be only one course of action, then,” Aspen said, like she had it all figured out.
“And what’s that?”
“Take control, Sutton. Make him do what you want. If he’s not happy, fucking ecstatic, barking like a dog, to have you like that, to have you at all, he doesn’t deserve you.”
Hmm, I thought. Maybe she does have it figured out.
The drive home was tense, the air in the car damn near suffocating. In fact, the only reason I wasn’t crushed to dust under its weight was because Lane held my hand the entire way, anchoring me.
I appreciated the small gesture more than I could say. He seemed to understand my emotions were all over the place, unable to settle on any one thing.
Still, despite his sweetness and gentleness, I should’ve been prepared for that alpha side of him to take over the moment we were in the house. I barely had time to kick my shoes off before his hands were on my hips, backing me into the wall, his mouth descending toward mine.
Kissing him was like breathing again, like my lungs were fully inflating for the first time in too goddamn long.
His lips moving against mine filled me with an extreme sense of rightness.
But everything about this was wrong. His hard body pressed against mine, restricting my ability to move, triggering my fight or flight response.
“Lane,” I gasped when he pulled away, trailing kisses across my cheek, my jaw, my throat.
He merely groaned in response.
“No, stop,” I begged, pushing with all my might.
I knew when he finally stepped away, he only did so of his own free will, not because I’d moved him.
Lane was a solid wall, six feet, five inches of hard muscle.
Physically, he was so imposing it almost scared me—would have scared me if I didn’t know the man that existed beneath the brawn.
Frowning, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “I can’t…”
There was no good way to explain this, and truthfully, I simply wasn’t ready to strip myself and bare my raw, jagged edges to him.
“You don’t have to run away from me again, sunny,” he said.
That made my hackles rise. “I didn’t run away before,” I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest. “In fact, you’re the one who left me.”
It was a low blow, and we both knew it.
And Lane clearly wasn’t going to let me get away with it.
“You pushed me away!” he exploded.
He was right, of course.
And yet, he was so wrong.
Neither of us were to blame—or maybe we both were. We’d both been our own downfall.
Honestly, I didn’t know anymore. I’d had so much time—too much time—to think about our ending over the last decade and a half. The two events were tied together so inextricably in my mind. The rape, our ruin. A cause and effect, a chain reaction that led us both to this very moment.
But, of course, he was right.
I had driven the final nail into our coffin.
I’d been the one to tell him I couldn’t bear to be touched.
And it hadn’t been some ambiguous, broad statement.
No, I’d made him feel like he had been the problem.
“I can’t bear to be touched by you.”
Those words had haunted me for over fifteen years.
Still I couldn’t help whispering, “You could’ve fought for me.”
“You’re right, Sutton. I could have, and I should have. It’s my biggest regret.” He swept his arms out. “But…the fuck do you think I’m doing now?”
“Why didn’t you do it back then?”
Lane sighed, swiping that damn broad hand over his face in a way that told me he did not want to be having this conversation.
That made two of us.
“I was a kid, sunny. We both were. And I was so fucking angry. For what happened to you, for how broken you felt, for my inability to do a goddamn thing about any of it. I’m still fucking furious.
You were the thing that mattered most to me, and when it came down to it, I hadn’t been able to protect you.
That thought guts me, Sutton. It’s fucking haunted me for nearly sixteen years. ”
I…hadn’t known. Maybe I’d been too wrapped up in my own despair and brokenness to even care.
That entire time of my life had been defined by the rape.
There hadn’t been a single second of the day when in the thick of it that I hadn’t been entirely consumed by it.
I loved Lane—then and now—but hadn’t had the bandwidth to dedicate to anything but my continuously failed attempts to heal.
When he’d gone, I let him.
He wasn’t the only one who could have fought for us.
“Do you hate me?” I asked quietly, afraid for the answer but needing to hear it regardless.
Slowly, he reached for me, and I let him draw me into an embrace. The fight drained from him as it simultaneously left my own body.
“Never,” he assured me. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“Sunny, there’s nothing to forgive. If anything, you should be forgiving me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I parroted. “We were kids navigating an impossible situation.”
Instantly, I could breathe more easily. I had no idea what would happen between us from here, but at least we’d cleared that bit of musty air.
For a heartbeat, he rested his forehead against mine, seeming to breathe me in. Then he sighed, not giving me a chance to respond before he let go of me and stepped away.
“Where are you going?”
“Giving you space,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
What if I didn’t want it?
What if I wanted to chase the high I’d experienced when he kissed me earlier instead?
I wasn’t ready to go there with Lane yet, wasn’t ready to give him my body.
With him, it never stopped there anyway.
Sex with Lane had always been a wholly vulnerable experience, not only baring myself physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.
I always wound up giving him everything, my heart and soul tangled in the sheets around us.
But there was something I could give him now.
As the idea took shape, I reached for his hand and wordlessly tugged him toward the stairs.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
Grinning at him over my shoulder when I reached the top landing, I pulled him into the guest room, shooing Boots out before closing the door. My cat did not need to witness what I hoped was about to happen.
I directed Lane to the chair in the corner. His expression was dazed as he dropped that big, beautiful body down on the plush cream fabric, elbows coming to rest on the wooden arms.
Without speaking, I reached behind my back and gripped the zipper of my dress, slowly tugging it down. As it loosened, the straps slipped down my shoulders to curve over my biceps, but I kept my elbows tight to my sides so it didn’t completely slip free from my body.
“Sunny,” he rasped, hands gripping the arms of the chair tight enough that the wood squeaked. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t think I’m ready for you to touch me yet,” I admitted. “It’s not a you thing. It’s a me thing. But I thought…”
“Thought what?” he prompted when I trailed off.
“Thought you might like to watch.”
Lane leaned forward and came half out of the chair like he was about to grab me, throw me down, and have his way with me.
But he held back, catching himself at the last moment and once again sitting down, his elbows resting on his knees now.
“Lose the dress, sunny.”