"Mm."
"This is my favorite night I've ever had."
I stared at the ceiling.
"Go to sleep, Haven," I said.
But still, I pulled her closer.
TWELVE
Haven
We kept doing that.
…we kept doing it fortwo months.
It felt insane that no one figured it out, but somehow, we managed to keep it a secret. Every day except for class days, I’d go to work at the ranch. Every night, I’d leave through the main gate, then pull around back and park behind Wyatt’s place.
And during those nights…god.God.
He learned exactly how I liked it. Learned that I came harder with his hand around my throat than almost anything else. Learned that if he got the vibrator on my clit while he was inside me I'd lose the ability to form words entirely—he'd done that one twice just to watch me fall apart, and both times he'd had this look on his face like he was conducting an experiment he already knew the results of.
I learned things too. That he had a thing about my hair—always grabbing it, wrapping it around his fist, pulling my head back so he could get at my throat. That he liked me loud. That he'd edge me until I was crying and begging and then he'd give me everything at once and watch me take it with this expression that did something genuinely dangerous to my heart.
We tried everything. Up against the wall, bent over the kitchen table, out on the back porch at midnight when he couldn't wait to get inside. He'd wake me up at three in the morning with his mouth between my legs, not saying anything, just—taking what he wanted, which turned out to be something I very much wanted him to do. He used the belt twice more. Used his hand so many times I lost count. Once he held me down by the back of my neck and fucked me so slow I actually sobbed, and he just kept going, steady and unhurried, telling me to take it in that low Texas drawl that only came out when he was deep in it.
Take it, he'd say.That's it. Good girl.
I was so down bad it was embarrassing.
Then it was summer.
And I was still in a secret relationship with a man nearly twice my age.
Still wanting him.
Still desperately, hopelessly in love.
Still lying about being on the pill.
The thing was, I'd been on the pill in high school—started it for cramps, stayed on it out of habit. Then I'd gotten a new insurance card in January and the pharmacy had some kind of issue and I'd missed a refill and then another and then it had been six weeks and somehow I'd never quite gotten around to fixing it.
And then Wyatt happened.
That first night I'd told him I was on the pill because I was panicking and it was technically recently true and he'd looked so relieved and I hadn't corrected it because I wanted him and I was twenty-one and stupid.
He always used a condom anyway. Or pulled out. Usually both, which, looking back, maybe should have told me something about how seriously he took this. But in the momentit had felt like enough. Like the math worked out. Like the universe wouldn't be cruel enough to make me pay for one small lie told in the dark to a man I was absolutely desperate to have.
And he hadn't asked again. Not once in two months. So it was fine.
It was totally fine.
I was lying in his bed on a Tuesday morning in April watching him pull his shirt on before work, already thinking about that night, already planning what I was going to ask him for, when I did the math in my head.
Then I did it again.
Then I lay very still and stared at the ceiling and thought:hm.
