James doesn’t take his eyes off me for the rest of the night.
He sits in a far corner of the bar, nursing a bottle of water for a whole hour until our team wins the game and the place clears up.
He spoke loud and clear earlier, and I’m not naïve enough to think he’ll miraculously change his mind, although that ember of hope still burns hot.
I’m too old for you, he said, as if I’d forgotten our age difference. Not even for a second.
But I’m not asking the world of him. I’m not demanding a marriage contract or a promise of undying love.
A taste, that’s all I want; maybe then I can convince myself it’s over.
The bottom line is he’s drawing some very clear boundaries, and I should respect them. I’m going to. Who cares if I’m old enough to order a drink at a bar? To pay my own rent and be independent? To know what I want—kind of—and be determined enough to go after it? Nobody does because I’m twenty-one. A whole decade younger than him, and I don’t see what the big deal is, but I’m also not going to push him.
The fact that I had to grow up faster than other people my age doesn’t mean I’m fully mature, I know this. But I also know I grew up in a stable and sensible family that taught me what signs to look out for in people who might want to take advantage of me in more ways than one.
Older or not, James isn’t trying to manipulate me. If he were, he wouldn’t be fighting these instincts we seem to share.
I guess there’s one good thing that came out of the fiasco tonight. All the tables I waited on witnessed the shit show with Creepy Old Man Number One, and they left some extra tips to cheer me up. And I’m not complaining.
Monica also let me off the hook earlier than usual, given that the crowd had visibly lessened after the game ended. Just as I close the door behind me in the break room, ready to get out of this tight top and call it a day, my phone pings inside my bag.
It’s a text from James, sent just now.
James: I’m waiting in my car outside
I don’t text him back but instead rush to change with my heart beating so fast I’m scared it will stop all of a sudden.
For almost two full weeks, he didn’t contact me at all. Not even to tell me he needed some time away. I would’ve understood. Damn it, I really would have. But he took that choice away from me, the option to decide what I wanted to do with our…relationship? We don’t have one, and we never will.
A part of my brain knows I’m being irrational. He came back, apologized, and explained himself. And I get it, but I also can’t seem to put out this fire consuming my stomach, filling me with anger like never before.
Because I’m tired of allowing the people who leave to walk all over me when they want to come back. I stood up against my father, holding my ground until he left, and tonight won’t be an exception.
Never again. They don’t get to walk away and come back whenever they feel ready. That’s bullshit.
I grab my things, wave goodbye to Monica and Matt, and step outside into the cold night air.
Standing against the hood of his car with his bulky arms crossed in front of his chest, James waits for me like he said he would.
His eyes don’t leave mine as I cross the parking lot, and I can tell the exact moment he sees it, because I feel the shift too.
I stop before him, mere inches away from the warmth of his body, and say, “You left.” My voice doesn’t waver. My words don’t hesitate to slice him open. “You promised me you’d be there for me, and you left. You broke your word.”
His massive body doesn’t move an inch. Not his arms, not his chest, and not that sharp jaw.
He doesn’t even blink, this huge man who’s never been short on the intimidating traits. But I don’t back down from the coldness behind those beautiful eyes I’ve gotten lost in more times than I can count.
The seconds go by, then a full minute, and he still hasn’t said a word. The lips I confessed I wanted to kiss merely an hour ago are sealed tight.
I wish I could read his mind, but at the same time, I’m too scared of what I’d find there. I wonder if it would sting too much, if it would burn.
If it would break me.
He takes a step forward, then another. And then that hand, that massive hand, is cupping the side of my cheek, cradling it in his warm palm. “Maddie,” my name falls from his lips in a single breath, something between a pained whisper and a sigh.
I blink up at him, unsure if I’m even allowed to breathe right now. It doesn’t feel like I could, even if I wanted to.
When his forehead meets mine, gentler than I’ve ever seen him do anything ever before, I melt a little.
And when he speaks again, I melt all at once.
“I’m sorry for hurting you.” His voice is low and rough, and I think his fingers against my skin are shaking a little. But I might be imagining it. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, Maddie. Why I’m so fucking terrified of this.”
I swallow, my throat feeling as dry as sandpaper. “I’m scared too.”
“Why?” I feel him frown against my skin.
It all comes down to this, doesn’t it?
“Because I make everyone walk away.” I swallow again as my heart gallops inside my chest and my pulse drums in my ears. “I made you walk away. I told you we should see each other again, and it freaked you out.”
His thumb brushes my cheek, right under my eye, and it’s only then that I realize a single tear has fallen. “You didn’t push me away, baby. You could never.” James shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. “I couldn’t be more ashamed of myself for having disappeared like that, but I promise it had nothing to do with you or anything you said. You could never make me walk away. Never, because I don’t want to walk away from you. Do you understand me?”
I gulp, giving him a small nod.
“Who did this to you, Maddie?” The sudden change in his voice takes me aback. “Who made you so untrusting, so wary? Who made you believe you were to blame for other people’s actions?”
I feel it then.
It starts on my toes, then travels to my knees, my chest, and finally the jaw he’s cradling so gently in his touch.
I start shaking like I’ve never done before, and it doesn’t even take him one second before he pulls me into his arms, against his hard chest, and keeps me there. Soothing me.
His arm wraps around my back, his fingers splayed on my hip as his other hand tangles in my hair. James presses his stubbled cheek against the top of my head as he rocks me back and forth, cradling me like I’m this fragile thing he needs to protect.
And I’ve never, not in my twenty-one years, felt more shielded.
Maybe that’s why I tell him. Maybe that’s why I decide to confide in him what I haven’t told a soul, not my friends and not my family, not my brother. But I want him to know.
I want him to know because this is James. Simply him.
I want to tell him about her.
“When I moved here, to Norcastle, four years ago, I went to see a therapist,” I start, unable to believe this is really happening. I’m talking about it, and I’m fine. I’m fine. “I hadn’t been to therapy for two years, but being away from my family for the first time, living so far away… I felt like that was the right thing to do.”
His arms tighten around me, giving me the strength I need to keep reliving this hell.
“Our first couple of sessions went fine. She said…” I let out a breath, urging my body to calm down and stop shaking so violently. It doesn’t work. “She said some things that upset me, but I let them slide. But as time went by, she started planting these ideas in my head. She explained it in a way that made sense, I guess, and didn’t raise any alarms at first.”
“What things?” he asks, his voice a growl, but his anger isn’t directed at me. I know this.
I bury my head in his chest, just a little closer to his heart. “She said I… That I was being selfish with my family by bothering them with my problems. That they needed a real break from me now that I’d finally moved out.”
I will never forget the sharp pain in my chest, like I was dying, in that session.
A muttered “fuck” reaches the top of my head.
“She said I should be independent and let them be, let them enjoy their family time. You know, because I wasn’t their real family.”
“That’s bullshit,” he spits out.
“I know it now.” But the damage is done, and the residuals are hard to shake off. So painfully hard. “I told her about how I felt bad that they couldn’t have more children because of me, even if they had never told me anything remotely close to that, and I know now that isn’t the case. But she said my suspicions were correct, and that they would probably have another baby now that I had moved out.”
But they didn’t. And when I brought it up to Sammy as a joke, he snorted and said, “No, thanks. You and Lila are giving me enough gray hairs to last me a lifetime.”
James’s fingers massage my scalp as if he is trying to get all the bad memories out himself. “What else did she say?”
“Too much. She said too much.” My body has stopped shaking, all but the hands I keep sandwiched between our bodies. “How everyone has walked out of my life because I’m selfish and push them away. She said my mother tried to come back for me, but I didn’t let her and instead manipulated my brother with my tears so he’d feel pity and keep me. I had panic attacks for years, just thinking about what a shitty person I was. And I never told my family about it.”
“Jesus,” he mutters against the top of my head. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I hope you know it’s all bullshit.”
“Sometimes it’s difficult to remember,” I whisper, inhaling the familiar scent of his spicy cologne. “But I’m trying. Every day I fight against the intrusive thoughts.”
“How long did you see her for?”
“About two months. I should’ve never gone back after the first session, maybe the second, but she was just so…so cunning. I feel so stupid now, looking back. I should’ve known something was wrong way before that.”
He squeezes my waist. “The important thing is that you got the hell out of there,” he reassures me. “Have you gone back to therapy since then?”
I shake my head. “I can’t.” What if my next therapist says the same stuff? Would I believe she was right, then? “She ruined it for me.”
“But do you need therapy now?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to go back” is an understatement. Until her, therapy had always worked for me. I used to leave my sessions with a lighthearted feeling in my chest and full of optimism, and now…
James pulls away from me, not letting me go completely, so he can look me in the eye. “We’ll research options together,” he decides then and there, just like that.
I blink up at him just as the hand he keeps on my hip travels all the way to my back and settles there. Like an anchor.
“I won’t let her ruin a good thing for you, Maddie. A thing you need.” He scans my face with intent, looking for something he seems to find a moment later. “Do you know if she still has her license?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea.” It used to make me nauseated just thinking about her, let alone stalking her online. “I know she has a website, because that’s how I found her, but…”
“What’s her name?” he asks, a new resolve in his voice.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’ll have her license revoked.” There’s not a single trace of a doubt in his words. Not one, and it brings back that tingle in my spine. “Even if it’s the last thing I ever do. Nobody messes with you and lives to tell the tale, baby. Not while I’m here.”
Thump, thump, thump.
I wet my lips and notice the way his eyes follow the movement like a hawk. “Her name isn’t important anymore.”
“It is to me. It is if she hurt you.”
“James, it really is all right,” I insist one more time.
When he opens his mouth to say something else, I do something I would’ve never, not in a million years, imagined myself doing.
I press a finger against his lips, so soft under my touch, and he shuts up immediately.
It would be funny if not for the fact that the heat in his eyes has morphed into something less angry and more…hungry. I don’t even know how to describe it.
“It’s fine.” My voice comes out as a whisper. “I’m okay now. I’m trying to go back to the person I was before, and that’s all that counts. Okay?”
He nods, silent.
Slowly, too slowly, my finger falls from his lips, settling on his stubbled chin first then on the hammering pulse in his neck. And I can’t help it, so I say, “I’m sorry for venting like that. I know you asked me, but—”
“Maddie.”
I gulp. “Yes?”
“Stop apologizing.”
And then, and then, as if he were running out of time and starving all at once, he closes the slim distance between us and presses his lips against mine.
Holy shit.
The throaty growl that leaves him is borderline animalistic. His hands, strong and possessive, pull me impossibly closer to his hard body.
Oh my God.
He pulls at my hair in a way that feels dominant and only slightly painful, drawing out a weak sound from the back of my throat I’ve never heard before. Before I can overthink it too much, my fingers tangle in his hair, my nails scratching his scalp, and he groans.
He kisses me like he’s drowning and I’m his mainland.
There’s nothing slow or tender about it, but this kiss is exactly what I need. What my body has been begging for.
It doesn’t matter that we’re standing in the middle of a parking lot, where anyone coming out of the bar could see us. I don’t care about anything but the all-consuming feeling of his lips on mine.
His teeth pull at my lower lip, and my mouth opens just enough for his tongue to tangle with mine in a sensual dance. His hand finds the naked skin on my back, and before we know it, we’re panting for air.
“Look what you do to me,” he growls against my skin, pressing my stomach against his hard groin. He’s hard. He’s hard for me. “You drive me insane, baby. Can you feel it?”
“Yes,” I breathe out, desperate to feel his friction between my legs. “James…”
He nibbles my ear. “Tell me why this feels so right if it’s so fucking wrong.”
I pull him away from my neck until we’re eye to eye. “Because it’s not wrong.”
He gulps, the conflict so clear in his gaze I want to scream. And maybe I’m not doing myself any favors, but I say, “Just tonight. Take me home tonight and forget about how right or wrong it feels for one night.”
His forehead presses against mine, but he doesn’t say a word. He closes his eyes, his breathing labored, and I fear I’ve lost him before I’ve even had him.
“James—”
My words die in my mouth, silenced with another searing kiss. I pull at his shirt as his hands find the curve of my ass, gripping it like I’ve imagined so many times in my forbidden fantasies.
His mouth travels to my neck next, biting and kissing and sucking. A primal part of me wishes he’d leave a mark to let the world know I belong to him.
Heat climbs up my cheeks as he hoists me up, and I wrap my legs around his hips on instinct. “Who’s blushing now?” he asks in a raspy, teasing voice, his thumb caressing my reddened cheek. “Tell me what you need, beautiful.”
The words spill out of me unabashedly. “I want to feel you,” I pant with need, with desperation, with ache. I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more than this.
“Yeah?” he grunts, pressing his hard groin against my soft center. “You want to feel me here?”
“Yes,” I breathe out, desperately clinging to him. “Right there. Please.”
“Look at you, asking so nicely.” His teeth sink into my throat, but not hard enough to hurt. An unabashed whimper escapes my lips. “Get in the car, baby.”
He kisses me once more, twice, and then reluctantly sets me on the ground. Our lips meet again, short but not sweet, before his touch leaves my body, and I climb into the passenger seat.
James doesn’t utter a single word as we leave for his apartment, his heated promise hanging above us. He keeps one of his big hands splayed on my thigh, a possessive gesture I’m starting to become addicted to, and drives away into the night.
