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“Damn you, Trenton,” Sanjay murmured as he rested his cheek on his knee. “And damn you, Matt.”
Four years and Sanjay was still dealing with the effects Matt’s abuse had on him. If he didn’t deal with his past, Sanjay feared he would ruin his future. Jake had been right. Sanjay had taken out his fears from a previous relationship out on him. That hadn’t been fair to Jake, but Sanjay didn’t know how to simply forget what Matt had done and move on.
Sanjay was letting Matt’s toxicity bleed through him and onto Jake. The truth was so damned fucked up that it wasn’t even funny.
He sat on the porch for a long time, his thoughts jumbled. He knew he needed to face his fears and past, but the thought of daring to do so made him want to shift and take off.
Sanjay didn’t want to be afraid of intimacy, of trust, of being close to someone. He didn’t want to be afraid of wolves. He didn’t want to be afraid of himself.
But he was.
He was afraid of all those things.
He was afraid of being close to Jake, of trusting Jake, of being intimate with him. He was afraid of being close to anyone.
He was afraid of the past, of the pain, of the cruelty.
He was afraid of the future, of the fear, of the vulnerability.
Why couldn’t he go back to being a juvenile? Life seemed so much simpler when he was little. Back then, his biggest worries were making friends so he could have sleepovers and getting the latest toy.
Sanjay shook his head, and a small smile played along his lips. Kids wanted to grow up so fast, and when they did, they wanted to be kids again. Life was fucking hard as an adult.
Sure, shifters were considered juveniles until they were at least fifty, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to be young again, dependent on his parents to handle life for him, shielding him from the harshness of the world.
God, how he wished he could go back and warn his past self not to be charmed by Matt. To run as fast and as far away as he could.
Sanjay looked up when he saw a wolf come into view. It was a beautiful creature, with tan, black, and rustic-red fur. Sanjay stiffened, watching the wolf as it slowly approached.
This wasn’t Matt. The coloring was all wrong, and besides, Matt had left town years ago. There was no reason for him to come back.
“Jake?”
The wolf dipped its head as it slowly made its way to Sanjay’s porch. Just seeing the wolf rooted Sanjay to the spot, his shoulders tight, his breath bursting in and out.
The wolf stopped at the steps and lay down, looking up at Sanjay. It really was magnificent, and in another life, Sanjay might have been in awe of such a majestic creature.
But Matt had ruined that for him. All Sanjay saw when he looked at the wolf was pain and misery as he waited for it to strike.
But it didn’t. It simply lay there, as if waiting for Sanjay to make the first move.
Then Sanjay noticed something on the wolf’s back leg. A small bag strapped to its fur.
“Please, shift.” Sanjay swallowed roughly. He wasn’t ready to see a wolf. He needed Jake instead.
When Jake shifted, he pulled the bag off his leg and pulled out a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt. Sanjay’s gaze slid over his toned body, lean with muscles. His eyes swept down to Jake’s groin, and then Sanjay quickly looked away.
He might be afraid of a lot of things, but Sanjay could appreciate a sexy body, and Jake had the sexiest naked body that Sanjay had ever seen.
“You ran.”
Sanjay had no idea what to say because he hadn’t the first clue how to express what he was feeling. He hadn’t talked to anyone about Matt, not even Dario. He’d kept what had happened to him bottled up inside, and Sanjay knew that was a recipe for disaster, that eventually everything he tried desperately to forget would force its way out, and most times in a negative way.
“Look.” Jake sighed as he sat on Sanjay’s steps. “Dredging up your past isn’t easy.”
“How would you know?” Sanjay asked. “You have no idea the fight I’ve been through just to get where I am now.”
“I’ve had to fight a lot in my life,” Jake said. “You’re not the only person who’s been through hell and back. But I never dreamed in a million years that the one thing I’d have to fight against is my mate. You’re trying to destroy something beautiful before it even has a chance to blossom. How are we supposed to get past this if you won’t even open up to me and tell me what you’re fighting against?”
