Chapter Seven #2
I pull her flush against me again and run my hand slowly along her spine. She lifts her eyes to mine and holds them there, her throat bobbing when she swallows.
“I have a son. He's fourteen. His name is James.”
What the fuck?
A son?
That's so far outside the range of things I was expecting that my brain immediately starts firing questions in every direction.
Fourteen. Who's his father? Where is he?
Why doesn't Rose have him? Why has nobody ever mentioned him?
And because my first instinct where this woman is concerned is always violence, somewhere in the middle of all that comes who the fuck hurt her and do I need to kill him?
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You're turning red, Jackson. Stay calm and let me finish.”
Fuck.
I take a deep breath through my nose and nod. Her shoulders sag a little, and I make myself shut up.
“I saw him the other night,” she says softly.
James. The name hits differently this time.
Everyone is gone. Mom. Dad. James.
The night she broke.
I don't say anything. I just keep my hand moving in slow circles against her back and let her tell me in whatever order she needs to.
“I've watched him grow up. I've even been in the same room with him more than once. But that night, he actually spoke to me.” A small laugh works its way out of her. “He's so tall now. Toothy. It's like watching my brother at fourteen all over again. Same everything.”
I smile because she does, but there's an ache sitting underneath hers that makes mine disappear almost as quickly. She turns into me and buries her face against my neck. I wrap both arms around her.
“The night our parents died in the plane crash, I was brutally raped by a man I looked up to through my college years. I got the call about the crash while I was already driving myself to the hospital to have a rape kit done, to report it. So I turned around, went home to pack and went to the airport instead. I put a pad on for the bleeding and told myself, told everyone, that I was just on my period.”
Every muscle in my body locks. But my hand keeps moving over her back. Somehow, I keep my hand fucking moving.
"The school buried all of it. Never in the news, never public, never so much as an accusation on paper. Hushed and smoothed over, because the dean of the highest-rated law school in California can't have a name like his tarnished."
She shakes her head against me and pulls in another breath before she keeps going.
"I used to daydream about coming across his headstone someday, finding out he'd died of some debilitating disease, some form of justice for what he took from me that night.
Here lies Wesley Finnegan. Rapist. Narcissist. Gone and Forgotten.
I'd dance on it. Spit on it." She lets out a breath that isn't quite a laugh.
"I don't even know if he's alive or dead, honestly.
I've refused to give him one more minute of myself. "
My hand has completely stopped moving.
I'm praying now. Actually fucking praying for the universe not to be this cruel.
"I'm sorry for dumping all of this on you," she whispers.
"I'm listening. Whatever you want to tell me, I'm here." I keep my voice low and level against the top of her head, even though there's a war going on underneath it. "Keep going. You're doing good, baby."
I press a kiss into her hair and make my hand start moving again.
My fingers are trembling, and I know she can feel it because there's no hiding a goddamn thing from this woman, but there's nothing I can do about that right now.
Some part of me is already halfway to a felony on her behalf, while the rest of me is trying desperately to stay right here in this bed and be what she needs.
"You know the restaurant, Noctra? Bennet's taken you there a few times." She keeps talking while she's still got the nerve. "That's Samson and his wife, Lauren. They adopted my son."
Everything in me goes quiet in a completely different way.
James.
Fuck.
"They knew us back in Houston, before my brother was Bennet Sullivan, when he was still Michael Bennett.
We left his name and both our old lives behind there when he turned eighteen.
Samson and Lauren followed us out a couple of years later so I could stay close to James, even if close only ever meant from afar. "
She takes another breath, and I feel it move through her against my chest.
"They've given him a good life. He's named after my father.
For years I was terrified there'd be some part of Wesley in him, that I'd look at him and see the man who did it.
I knew I'd never survive that." Her fingers curl slightly against me.
"But there isn't. There's none of him in there.
He's mine. He's beautiful, and I've never told a soul. "
Her voice gets quieter.
"Bennet doesn't even know. I hid it to give James a solid life, and by the time Michael was grown there was no point in unburdening it onto him.
What was I supposed to do, hand him fourteen years of guilt over something he couldn't change?
The suffering was mine. It was always going to be mine to carry alone. "
Her eyes close.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
I tighten my arms around her and press my mouth to the top of her head.
I don't tell her she should've told me. I don't ask how the fuck she carried all of this for fourteen years without anybody knowing, because knowing Rose, she'd probably give me a detailed answer and somehow make it sound reasonable.
I just hold her.
When I finally trust my voice, I keep it soft. "Is the assault why you feel more comfortable being in control? Sexually, I mean."
She nods against my chest. "Yeah. I was a virgin when it happened. It took five years before I could be with anyone after that."
Fucking hell.
She was...
He took...
I can't finish the thought.
Rage floods through me, hot and so goddamn useless that I have to clench my jaw against it. She thinks she's telling me a story about a stranger, and I have to lie here and let her believe that, because the truth sitting in my chest would burn this whole moment down around us.
I'm sorry.
God, Rose, you don't know how fucking sorry.
But my grief isn't what she needs from me right now, and neither is my guilt. This is hers. She trusted me enough to finally hand me something she's carried alone for fourteen years, and I'm not going to make her turn around and carry me too.
So I breathe through it, keep my arms exactly as gentle as they were before I knew, and force my voice steady.
"I'm so sorry, baby."
The words mean so much more than she can hear.
She nuzzles her cheek into my chest, and I feel some of the tension finally leave her.
"I like it when you call me that."
"I like it too."
Then she moves, rolling on top of me and settling across my thighs before dragging herself along my hardening length in one slow, deliberate stroke. Her eyes find mine, and there's no ghost in them now. There's only Rose, right here with me, taking what she wants.
I know what she needs. She needs to write over it, right now, with me, and I'm begging my body to cooperate even while my mind keeps trying to show me things I can't afford to picture. I shove every one of them down.
"What else do you like to call me?" She scrapes her nails down my chest and follows the sting with soft kisses, one for each mark.
"Ma'am," I say with a smug grin.
"Such a good boy for me."
She reaches between us and guides me inside her, sinking down inch by inch, and her head falls back on a deep moan. "I love how you fill me. How I wrap around your cock."
My eyes follow my own hands as I run them up over her shoulders, then down to cup her breasts, like I'm mapping her.
They trail lower, over her stomach, across the soft strip of hair at her pussy, and finally settle on her hipbones, thumbs pressing into the hollows there like they were carved just for me.
She rises up on her knees, and I hold myself steady at her entrance and guide her back down slowly. She winces at the new angle, at how deep I sit inside her like this, and I go completely still beneath her, hands gentling on her hips.
"Take your time, baby," I whisper, holding her eyes.
She bends and kisses me softly.
I want to spend the rest of my life exactly like this.
Not necessarily naked in a hotel bed, although I'm certainly open to making that a recurring agenda item, but with her.
We wasted years pining and inventing reasons we didn't make sense, and every one of those reasons dies a little more every time she looks at me like this.
She was made for me.
Whether I deserve her is another question, and I'm not letting that particular bastard into this bed.
When she relaxes again, the tension leaves her face and she starts moving with more confidence, her hands braced against my chest while our eyes stay locked.
"Jackson." My name leaves her on a broken breath. Her back arches, and I can feel every muscle in her rippling around me.
"Fuck, Rose. You feel so… fucking… good," I growl through my teeth.
She sits taller and keeps moving, finding a rhythm that has the last of my control hanging by a fucking thread. I clench my jaw and watch her take what she needs, and I have never in my life been more grateful to be used.
"Keep me, Jackson." Her voice breaks on it. "Don't let me go."
My heart fucking clenches.
Does she even know what she's asking?
I'd keep her forever if she'd let me. Hell, I've been hers since before I had any right to be.
I catch a handful of her hair and bring her mouth down to mine, kissing her hard enough to swallow whatever sound comes next.
"I won't, Rose." I hold her against me, forehead pressed to hers when the kiss breaks. "You're stuck with me, baby."