His gut seized. He didn’t like the direction this was going in. “Yes.”
“Well, at some point the guy I was with led me up these dark stairs and we ended up in what I thought was a classroom. He said he wanted to show me sculptures his friend’s brother had made that were being submitted to the next round of awards. It was dark, and I knew he was drunk, but there were so many people downstairs, and he’d come with a group of guys. I didn’t worry until I realized there were no sculptures in the room. There were huge pieces of equipment and computers on every table, and it hit me that it wasn’t right. But by then…” Her voice trailed off.
“He was all over me, and you have to understand. I had spent three years undoing everything I’d become in the trailer park. I dressed more proper, acted more feminine, and where I could have kicked anyone’s ass when I first got to college, I had buried that girl in order to fit in.”
Bear’s muscles hardened to knots of rage. He clenched his teeth to keep those tight coils from unleashing a beast of vengeance.
Her hand was sweating, and tears spilled from her eyes. “And then he was on top of me, pushing my skirt up, tearing off my underwear, telling me I wanted him. It was like I was watching it happen from above, and then my brain kicked into gear. I fought back, Bear. I fought and punched, and I became Chrissy again, the girl from the trailer park, trying to kill him. I grabbed him by the hair at the same moment he slammed into me, and the pain…” Tears fell down her cheeks. “The pain was excruciating. I wasn’t a virgin, but being taken against your will is nothing like consensual sex. It was over fast. I was horrified and hurt and so fucking angry I couldn’t see straight. He pulled me up to my feet, and I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he said, ‘Now you have something to write home about.’”
Chapter Five
CRYSTAL CLOSED HER eyes, waiting for Bear to react to her awful confession. When she looked at him again, interminable seconds pulsed and swelled like ticking time bombs as she waited for him to say something, do something. He shifted his eyes over her shoulder, the muscles in his face, shoulders, and arms flexing. She was tucked within the confines of his body, as if he wanted to swallow her up and protect her. But he couldn’t protect her from the past, and she could see the pain that caused him written all over his face.
David’s voice whispered through her mind. Just because you’re ready to share your past doesn’t mean he’s ready to hear it.
“Bear,” she said softly, wishing she could see inside his head. Would he move on to someone without such shitty baggage, without ghosts? Someone who had a normal, functional family like his? Sadness brought more tears. She forced them away, steeling herself for the worst. Sure, he’d been her friend for months, and he’d dropped everything to pick her up when she’d needed rides and showed up to help when she was babysitting for Kennedy and Lincoln. But no matter how much he flirted, or how good a friend he’d been, there was a world of difference between wanting to sleep with a person and wanting to bear their secrets. She’d been through hell and back, and she’d survived. She could survive this.
His angry eyes rolled from her forehead to her cheeks, her mouth, all the way to her chin, and back up again. When he finally met her gaze, the tension lines fanning out from the edges of his mouth eased, and compassion rose in his eyes.
“Is it okay if I hug you?”
Her heart tumbled inside her chest. The man who told, who took, who possessed had asked if he could hug her? “Yes.”
As he gathered her in his arms, holding her with the strength of a hundred men and the tenderness of a thousand more, she thought of the day she’d tried to tell her mother, and pain sliced through her anew. This was what she’d needed all those years ago, when the woman who had raised her, who was supposed to love and care for her unconditionally, had only spat venom. And this man, this warm, wonderful man, who had known her for less than a year, knew exactly what she needed.
Bear held her tighter. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
He held her for a long, long time, comforting her and making her feel safe. Every word, every sweet, tender kiss he pressed to her head, chipped away more of the wall she’d constructed around her heart, unleashing years of unspoken fear and heartache. She clung to him, sobbing not only for the attack, but for the loss of her father and the descent of her mother, letting out all the sadness she’d kept locked up until she had no more tears to cry. And then she gasped for air, whimpering like a child coming to grips with an injury that no longer threatened to steal her life but stung like a paper cut—painful and sharp, but livable.
Within the safety of Bear’s arms, his heart beating sure and steady against her own, her ghosts disengaged from some hidden dungeon deep within her, escaping through her confession and tears, and she found a sense of peace.
“Thank you for trusting me.” Bear’s voice was thick with emotion. “There are not enough words to express how sorry I am for all you’ve gone through.”
She drew back far enough to see his glistening eyes, causing hers to tear up again. He brushed her hair from in front of her face and kissed her forehead. His gaze turned regretful.
“Everything I did last week, baby. Jesus. I’m so fucking sorry. What I said. The way I pushed. Fuck. I’m so sorry. You must have been terrified. Crystal, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t expect a thing from you. If you want this, if you want me, I will be the man you need me to be. I’ll go with you to therapy. I’ll talk. I’ll listen—”
“Bear,” she interrupted, unable to hold in her feelings any longer. “You are the man I want.”
His jaw tightened again.
“I don’t need to go back to therapy, but I love knowing that if I ever do, you’d be willing to go with me. That means more to me than you could ever imagine. The reason I went to see David was that I do want to explore whatever this is between us. I want it so much it’s practically all I think about. You’re all I think about. And in my head, I worried that I’d freak out if we got close, not out of fear of being intimate, because I’m not afraid to be intimate with you. I backed off out of nervousness. I had finally found someone I wanted to move on with, and I worried I’d freak out, even though I wasn’t scared. That’s why it took me so long. And it might have taken me even longer if you hadn’t finally kissed me. I promise you, I’ve dealt with the actual…incident. It was all those months of wanting and worrying, not the assault, that made me freak out.”
She swallowed hard, gathering the courage to tell him the rest of the truth.