JAMES
FORTY-TWO
Beware of a woman who knows her worth, because she sees straight through the lies.
When the bed shifts, I’m not in the slightest bit surprised.
This woman can see straight through me like no other before her, so while I’m one hundred percent sure the correct course of action is to remove her, I don’t have it in me.
The lies I hurt her with earlier replay in my mind, the gnawing guilt churning in my gut.
She tears the comforter off my body and straddles my chest. I eye her hard, tensing. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”
“Give me your hands.”
Her long hair tickles my chest, and the shadows shift around her. She’s not naked, so maybe I have a fighting chance at not giving in to her. My hands lift, drifting over her hips and discovering she’s wearing my shirt. Scratch that. I have no chance.
“Above your head, James,” she demands. Well, this is new, and color me curious about where she’s going and what she’s thinking.
I oblige, and the familiar leather wraps around them before she loops it through the solid, thick bed frame and tugs it tight.
I both want to see her more clearly and don’t. Because every interaction, every look, every touch is torture, knowing I can’t have her, not really, not in the way she needs.
She switches on the bedside light, bathing the room in a golden glow that makes her look like an avenging angel. I’m so fucked.
“You comfy?” she asks, her tone biting, stare unforgiving. I’d be more comfortable naked and buried inside her body. I glance at her hands. Her nails are painted sky-blue.
“Relatively speaking.”
“Good, because I’m about to give you some hard truths, James Austin.”
My jaw flexes, spine rigid. “This should be good.”
She parks her hands on her hips, still straddling me. Adorable, stunning, devastating.
I should push her away, hit her with lies to make her run from me.
But as I stare into her eyes, I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Miss Stephanie King isn’t running scared, and shit if watching her be so much more than I gave her credit for isn’t impressive.
If she can be honest and unflinching, then I’m done trying to protect her by hurting her.
She shakes her head and huffs. “Now I have you tied up, unable to run away and disappear into whatever bullshit codependent relationship you have going on with that ax.”
My lips twitch. “It’s winter. We need firewood, and there’s a storm coming in.”
“You’d be out there regardless,” she points out. Stephanie isn’t going to be gentle right now.
“Fair enough. So I’m here, listening.” I meet her gaze. “Let me have it.”
“The things I’ve shared, the fantasies, the things I need, are tough to say out loud. They take courage, and I’m nurturing a confidence deep inside that was buried under the hurt and the pain.”
And I added to that pain.
I open my mouth, and her fingers press against my lips.
“You’ve had your chance. Now it’s my turn.”
I raise a brow but close my mouth. At the very least, I owe her the opportunity to talk.
“You seem to think I should be in the light, get married to a guy with a regular job who wants to own an SUV, fill it with babies, and live my days as a suburban housewife who runs the local book club and makes cookies for charity drives.” She bites her lip, shaking her head, her eyes both hard and vulnerable.
“But that’s not me. Maybe in another life, one where my one and only sexual encounter wasn’t taken without permission. ”
Just the mention of the past has my guts in knots, and I shift beneath her, fighting the urge to butt in.
“That girl, the one with choices, the one who didn’t know what it felt like to have her control snatched from her, died. But I’ve already mourned her. I healed, and I’m fucking proud of the woman I am today.”
I swallow the knot in my throat at the mention of her rape, of the choices taken from her. “That may be so, but you shouldn’t have had to. That never should have happened.”
She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“But it did. I spent years coming to terms with it, accepting that none of what happened was my fault, and that I can embrace and celebrate who I am without justifying the men who took something from me. It’s okay to love the dark parts of me, it’s okay to chase new dreams, and I don’t need to explain or apologize for what I want.
” She drops her hand to my chest, right over my heart.
“So what I’m saying is, stop seeing me as the victim, the naive girl.
You never even knew me when I was that woman.
Trying to create something that doesn’t exist anymore is a waste of time. ”
I shake my head, regretting letting her corner me like this.
“I have nothing but respect for who you are, and I’m in awe of your strength, but I want better for you, better than the darkness forever surrounding me.
No matter how far I run, how many of these assholes I put in the ground, I’m not positioned to be anyone’s happily ever after. ”
“My happily ever after isn’t what you think.
It might not be what anyone believes it should be, but that’s my point.
It’s not theirs—it’s mine. I get to decide what I want it to look like.
You might think you’re helping, but you’re taking away my choices all the same.
You don’t get to decide my future. No one does. ”
That hurts as surely as a punch to the gut. I knew I was bad, but… “This is exactly what I mean. I’m fucked up, sweetheart. I’m no one’s fantasy. I exist in nightmares. Even trying to do the right thing, I’m just fucking it all up.”
She presses her lips into a thin line and closes her eyes. Her soft hands press against my chest as she takes a deep breath. My heart is beating so hard, I can feel the vibrations.
“And I’m what? Sunshine and roses? Get real. I exist in nightmares. I have blood on my hands, James. I’m capable of terrible things.”
I try to adjust in the bed, my hands tingling. “Are you talking about the things your brother has done in the name of revenge? Because those fuckers deserved it, and he carries that weight, not you.”
Her throat bobs, and there’s something there I hadn’t noticed before—darkness.
“No, I’m trying to tell you about the guy I killed a few hours after I stumbled out of the police station.
I’m telling you I’ve spent years in therapy discussing what it means, because the feeling that most carry when they’ve committed a sin?
The guilt? The deep regret?” She lifts her eyes to mine, and I’m floored by the raw emotion there, my pulse racing. “I feel none of it.”
My breath lodges, and for the first time, I see her.
Really see her. Every facet of her soul laid bare.
The nightmares that she’s embraced. The darkness born from pain.
But mostly, I see her strength. The unapologetic way she walks through the world.
It doesn’t owe her anything, and she knows it.
And because of that, she goes out and demands what she wants.
Stephanie sits in front of me, existing precisely as who she is, and I take in everything that entails. Darkness has surrounded both of us, woven itself through our lives, an irrefutable stain. But Stephanie made a painting out of it, using the shadows to make the light seem brighter.
“Not all heroes are virtuous,” she whispers, her voice level.
“Some do bad things to survive, others deliver justice our antiquated system fails to provide, and others…” Her stare drills into me, and I can’t look away.
“...don’t even see themselves as being good in this world.
Those are the ones who don’t need pulling into the light.
Those are the ones who need someone who’s willing to meet them in the darkness.
The question isn’t whether you’re a hero, James.
The question is whether you’re willing to meet me in the dark. Because I’m right here, waiting.”
In the silence that follows, Stephanie leans forward. The smell of her shampoo crowds my senses as her hair forms a curtain around my face. She closes her eyes slowly, then dusts her lips over mine.
She kisses me.
But it’s not just a kiss. It’s a reckoning.