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“Your brothers and sisters?”
“After I’d left for school, he’d kept the other kids home. They found Hailey in the bathroom…it looked like she’d tried to lock herself in there. Daniel was on the floor in his room. Justin was next to him. Amanda was still in her crib.”
Ethan let out a muffled sob and then he was pushing into my arms. He felt so good there that I ignored the reflexive need to check his hands and just held onto him. “Your mom?” he asked.
“She was the one who found us. The others had been gone a while…long before he even came and got me from school. No one knows how I managed to hang on after having lost so much blood. I was in the hospital for three months. Physical therapy helped with the paralysis. I went to live with my grandmother in Indiana when they discharged me.”
Ethan pulled back from me and wiped at his face. He wiped at mine too which made me wonder if I’d been crying. I hadn’t felt any tears, but then again, I was so numb I wasn’t sure what I was feeling anymore.
“What about your mom?”
I shook my head. “When she refused to accept that my father had been the one who’d done it, my grandmother sued for custody of me.”
Ethan shook his head in disbelief. “She didn’t believe you?”
“No. Even after I woke up from the coma and told her what had happened, she insisted I was confused. That it was a stranger who’d done it.”
“What happened to your father?”
“He was arrested, but they couldn’t hold him on anything until I woke up and told them who’d attacked me. When I did, he took off. My mother helped him escape.”
“But they caught him, right?”
I shook my head. “He’s still out there somewhere.”
“And…and your mother?”
“She still lives in the same house…waiting for him, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Jesus, I’m so sorry, Cain,” he whispered and then he was hugging me again. “Is this okay?” he asked.
I nodded and pulled back so I could brush my lips over his. “It’s good,” I reassured him.
Really good, but I kept that fact to myself.
* * *
“Do you think we should try to go to the hospital I went to after…”
When Ethan’s voice dropped off, I shifted so I could press a kiss to his temple. We were lying in bed much like we’d done the day before when I’d asked him to let me hold him. His back was to my front and his fingers were roaming over the ones I had resting on his chest. We’d slept in the position all night long, though I hadn’t slept much because I’d been struggling with the implications of what was happening to me.
After telling Ethan my story the night before, we’d lain there in silence for a while before I’d had to get up and check in with Ronan. Ethan had used the time to shower. Ronan and I hadn’t really discussed strategy since, in truth, we didn’t have one beyond trying to get Lucy’s phone fixed so we could pull the video off it. Ronan was making arrangements for Ethan and I to meet a guy who had the skills needed to repair the damaged phone, but until he tracked him down, Ethan and I were rudderless.
Which was fine by me because I had no problem spending some down time with him. We’d have to find a different hotel today if I didn’t hear back from Ronan, but otherwise it would just be me and Ethan laying low.
After Ethan had finished his shower, I’d gone to take one myself. I’d given Ethan my phone so he could talk to Lucy and by the time I’d come back out, Ethan had been in bed.
In the wrong bed.
Instead of making him get up and join me in the bed we’d been using earlier, I’d merely crawled into his bed. I’d been about to ask him if it was okay when he’d snuggled back against me with a soft sigh before I’d even gotten completely settled. He’d left his shirt off to sleep, as had I, so I’d gotten to spend the entire night reveling in the feel of his skin against mine. He’d had one nightmare in which he’d begged someone to stop, though it took no thought to know who that someone was. A few whispered words in his ear had settled him and he’d slept through the rest of the night.
I’d used the time to try to understand what was happening to me. It was like I’d told Ethan. For whatever reason, my body didn’t care that he was a man…I’d never been more attracted to someone in my entire life. And while the idea of trying to navigate the physical aspects of being with a man instead of a woman was a little daunting because of the newness of it all, I knew I would love every moment of it because I couldn’t get enough of him and we’d barely even done anything. My brain was another matter, though. I’d never been in a relationship before, so I had no idea what that meant. The idea that whatever this thing between us could someday morph into something twisted and ugly like what my parents’ had had, scared the hell out of me. They’d claimed to love each other so deeply that nothing else existed for them…not even their kids. I could see myself having the same depth of feeling for the man in my arms, but what if it turned into something like what my parents had had? No, I would never hurt Ethan, but what if I became obsessed…what if I lost myself in the process and I ended up hurting him in other ways?
