Then he lifted a hand to me.
I scrambled, knocking over the stool. It fell with a crash and I nearly went down with it, but thankfully I kept my feet as I moved to get away from him, screeching, “Don’t you touch me!”
“Carrie,” he whispered.
“Out,” I heard Tack order.
“I haven’t tried a cream puff,” I heard Boz reply.
“Out!” I heard Tack bark.
I vaguely sensed the room emptying but I was too busy backing up and focusing on Joker.
And my burning mortification.
“I can’t believe you,” I hissed.
“Listen to me—” he started.
“No!” I screamed. “You pretended you forgot my name. You didn’t forget me!”
“Carrie,” he said gently, moving cautiously my way. “Baby, take a breath and listen to me.”
“Why?” I snapped. “You’re sharp, Carson. You knew when I first saw you I recognized you!” I yelled. “But you didn’t say a word. You let me introduce myself and you didn’t say a word. You did all this,” I threw out a hand, “because you felt sorry for me, and you didn’t say a word.”
“Carissa, seriously, listen to me,” he growled as I moved, rounding into the room to make my way to the door and escape, doing this as he stalked me.
“I didn’t get it,” I threw at him. “No one is this nice. Daycare. New house. Legal counsel. Too much. Too nice. Too easy. I didn’t get it,” I bit out. “Now I get it.”
“Carissa, goddamn it, you need to shut up and listen to me,” he clipped.
“No, I don’t,” I retorted, making hasty decisions because I needed an end to this. I needed this over. I needed to escape the burn threatening to end me. I’d endured enough, too much. I could take no more. “I’ll explain to Tyra and Tack about the house. I’ll get some money to Big Petey. I’ll sort the rest out. But no more Carissa Charity Case for you, Carson Steele. I’m leaving!”
I declared this, my heart breaking, my insides reduced to ash twisting in the flames, and I charged wide of him to get to the door.
He moved quickly, catching my upper arm in a firm grip and striding purposefully toward the back of the Compound, taking me with him.
I scurried to keep my feet under me as I was forced to walk backward, doing this shouting, “Take your hand off me!”
“Shut the fuck up,” he ground out.
“Do not talk to me like that, Carson Steele,” I yelled. “Take your stupid hand off me!”
He didn’t. He dragged me down the hall, pulled me in his room and then propelled me further with his hand on my arm pushing me then releasing me as I fell backward three steps and he slammed the door.
“Let me out!” I shrieked.
“Wanted you,” he replied. “In high school, I wanted you. So bad, my life went to shit, like it went to shit every single fucking day, to give my head some peace, I’d draw you.”
I snapped my mouth shut as my stomach squeezed so hard, I thought I’d be sick.
He kept at me.
“Last person I saw before I left my fucked-up life, meant everything that it was you. Years later, saw you again, you didn’t know me.”
Oh no.
“Carson,” I whispered.
“That fuckin’ hurt,” he forced out in a way I knew those three words cost him.
A lot.
Too much.
Yes, I was going to be sick.
“I—”
“Didn’t know who the fuck I was,” he finished for me acidly.
“I did,” I told him. “I just didn’t completely recognize you and you didn’t share when I introduced Travis and me.”
“You’re right,” he shot back. “I didn’t. Think on that, Carissa. You had a life where you got nothin’ you wanted, but still, you were fool enough to want a guy. You liked him. He was nice to you and you used him to give you peace from the shithole you called a home and the jackhole you called a dad. You saw him again, he didn’t know who the fuck you were, what would you do?”
Unfortunately, I saw his point.
More so seeing as he was a man, a manly man, a manly biker man who not only wouldn’t take kindly to that type of thing but also wouldn’t like to admit it hurt.
Not to mention, all he said about his home, his dad, using me to bring him peace killed me.
Sadly, thinking all this, I didn’t reply, so he had his chance to keep going.
“Now it’s been weeks where me, my brothers, their women have taken your back, looked after you, looked after your boy, you notice your fuck-up and you lay that charity case shit on me?”
“That was—”
“Fucked-up and ugly,” he finished for me again.
He was right.
“I was surprised,” I defended myself feebly.
“Yeah, me too. Surprised the homecoming queen had it in her ever to remember I existed.”
Okay, wait.
That blow was low.
He was right. I’d messed up.
But I didn’t deserve that.
“Joker, of course I’d remember you,” I said carefully.
“Yeah? Had my tongue in your mouth, your hands up my shirt, looked into my eyes beggin’ for more, Carissa, and that shit didn’t happen.”
Oh no.
Absolutely not.
“Your hair is different!” I retorted sharply.
“So’s yours,” he fired back.
This was true. It was longer. As was his.
Still.
“You had a beard.”
“You have a baby.”
Darn it!
“You’re a biker!” I cried.
“You’re a grocery store clerk,” he returned.
He was too much!
“It’s been years!” I yelled.
“Yeah, it has,” he whispered ominously.
But I knew what he meant.
It had been years and he still knew me.
He didn’t get the same.
But even if he was right, his reaction was wrong.