“No. I already told you I was half-asleep. I’ve had a long and tiring week, and the exhaustion must’ve left me in a fog when you came home. I didn’t mean it. I shouldn’t have—” The second his fingers gently wrapped around my wrist, my words died on my tongue. That’s when I realized I’d been staring at my hands in my lap while lying to him, and the moment I locked my surprised gaze with his, it was clear he’d figured it out.
But rather than call me out on it, he said, “Stop blaming yourself. Stop saying it was your fault. I kissed you. Got it? You didn’t do anything to make me do it. Maybe I’ve had a long week, as well. Maybe I was just as tired, and when I looked at you, I did something I shouldn’t have. We both played a part in what happened out there, yet I’m the one who kissed you. Trust me…I’m a big boy. No one can make me do anything against my will. Okay?”
I nodded, even though I disagreed. He may have been a big guy with muscles in places I wasn’t aware they existed, but I was all too familiar with how easily the female body could manipulate men.
“What happened to you, Jade?” he asked so quietly I wasn’t sure what the question was, but I didn’t need to ask him to repeat it because I could read it in his eyes. If they had the power to droop like those ceramic figurines of children, they would have. And even had I not seen that, I would’ve understood it in the way his chest steadily rose and fell with precise timing, as if he had to assert physical control over every breath he took.
“What do you mean?” I chose to play dumb rather than answer him.
“You were into the kiss at first, and then all of a sudden, it was like someone yanked you off my lap. Like you’d experienced PTSD or something. Couple that with the way you assumed the blame, and I’m convinced something happened to you in the past.”
“Umm…” I tried to start, but I had no idea where to begin. “It’s complicated.”
He blew out a wave of air that seemed to be laden with frustration. That was proven when he raked his hands through his hair and then blinked at me…as if batting his dark lashes would get me to open up and share all my deepest secrets. Granted, it probably would. But not this time.
“So that means it has something to do with your ex.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because every time I ask about him, that’s your answer. Then you immediately change the subject. All I know is you dated him when you were a teenager and have been broken up for three years. I’m assuming he’s also Aria’s father, but you’ve yet to confirm that. And if I’m right, then I also know he’s not a good person, because you don’t want him to have anything to do with her. So tell me…does this have to do with him?”
I shrugged, unable to speak. I couldn’t lie, no matter how badly I wanted to, because I knew he’d never believe it. With my luck, I’d try to make something up and end up telling him how Aria’s father was Justin Timberlake, but no one could ever find out because Jessica Biel would murder me. So…a shrug was all I could offer.
“Can you tell me anything else? What makes him so bad?”
“He’s older and manipulative. He’s just not a good person, okay?”
Cash nodded, and for a second, I thought he was about to drop it. But he didn’t. “How much older?”
“A lot.”
“And when did this start?”
“When I was sixteen.” Short answers were all I could give.
“Are we talking like he was in college? Or older than that?”
I fidgeted with my hands, and while I tried to form a response, I couldn’t stop the nervous habit of swallowing and licking my lips. He must’ve recognized it, because he shifted on the bed and placed his hands on my knees. Then he leaned toward me, moving directly into my line of sight. His eyes were all I needed to give me the strength to proceed.
“Older than that.”
He clenched his teeth together until his jaw ticced, and his grip on my knees tightened a fraction, just enough to show the slightest hint of a reaction. However, to me, it was a negative response, and I immediately wished I hadn’t said anything.
“I provoked it,” I justified quickly, needing to calm him down.
“How? How can you say that? I’m an adult, and there’s nothing about a sixteen-year-old I find even remotely attractive. It’s sick. It’s fucking disgusting…but that’s on him. Not you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand, Jade.”
I shook my head and tried to glance away, but his grip on my knee tightened and brought me back to his devastating eyes.
“Is he the reason you believe it’s somehow your fault if a guy touches you?”
“Isn’t it? If I’m the one who provoked it, how is it not my fault?”
“What the fuck did he do to you?” His question wasn’t meant for me. It was soft and full of air, spoken to some ominous being rather than me.
It was like he could see straight into me, straight to the truth I’d kept buried.
The last three and a half months had been a lie.
A fa?ade.
An illusion masking the reality.
And with one kiss, Cash managed to clear away the smokescreen.
14
Cash
It took everything in me not to flip the fuck out. As if finding out a grown-ass man had touched her when she was only sixteen wasn’t bad enough, hearing that he had convinced her it was her fault left me seeing red.
The worst part was I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t hold her hand or wipe away her tears. Every part of me itched to comfort her, hold her, assure her I was there. But there was no way I could do any of that without complicating our situation even more. Not to mention, the last thing I wanted to do was prove her ex right. She’d see my affection as something she’d provoked. And I hated that.
My mouth grew dry right before I asked, “Did he physically force himself on you?”
“No.” Her answer should’ve been enough to lessen the anger…but when she spoke, she looked up and to the left. That one simple glance brought the rage back like a black storm cloud on the heels of heavy winds.
“So let me get this straight…you said he’s manipulative, a lot older, someone you don’t want anywhere near Aria. He somehow convinced you that if a guy comes onto you, it was because of something you did. Yet he didn’t force himself on you?” I barely got the words out.
It was obvious she was trying to hold her own, keep up the fa?ade of everything being okay. But she couldn’t fool me. I was a man on a mission to figure out what had happened to her and why I hadn’t seen the signs until now.
“It started with innocent touches—brushing my hair over my shoulder, tapping me on the nose…things like that. Then he started saying things. He’d compliment how well my chest filled out a shirt, or how my butt looked in certain jeans. I developed early, so by this point, I had more curves than most girls my age.”
“You were sixteen?” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to clarify that.
“When he started saying things, yes. But the touching and flirting started when I was fifteen.”
I didn’t know Jade when she was that young, but it didn’t matter. The size of her breasts or thickness of her thighs at that age should’ve never been admired by a grown man. It sickened me.