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“Whoa,” he steadied me. “Olivia, what are you doing here? I thought you were in New Hampshire.” He gazed down at me and the intensity in his eyes caused me to shiver. I saw worry there too, swirling in the green depths. He knew something bad had to have happened to send me running here.
“I just…I needed you,” I whispered. “I have to tell someone. I have to.”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he crooned, wrapping me into his arms when I began to cry.
He swept my legs out from under me and we settled on the couch.
“What happened?” He wiped away my tears with his large thumbs.
“So much,” I croaked.
For the first time, I noticed that he was practically naked, wearing only a pair of plaid boxers. At any other time, I would have snorted. Of course he wears plaid boxers.
“Tell me what happened,” he pleaded, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
The whole thing, everything that happened in the past forty-eight hours, and what had happened years ago, spilled from my mouth. I didn’t hold anything back. Memories I had long ago suppressed bubbled to the surface, and I told those too, like the time we were in the park and my dad—er—Aaron, pushed me off the swing, claiming I fell on my own and I ended up with cuts on my hands and knees.
There was another time, when he was teaching me to ride a bike, where he purposely let go of me so that I fell into a ditch full of large rocks.
As I grew older, he switched to solely using the verbal abuse on me, but in the back of my mind, I remembered walking in on him beating my mother.
So many years and so much abuse. I had been able to block a lot of it, but I was sure my mother hadn’t been able to do the same. She had to remember everything, and I wondered how she made it through each day, without crumbling to pieces. I guess she was stronger than I thought.
Trace didn’t say he was sorry, he simply held me, and that’s all I wanted.
To feel safe.
???
Sometime later, I pulled away from his embrace. He looked me over carefully with those inquisitive green eyes.
“Thank you, for telling me,” he murmured, “and for trusting me. I know it was hard for you to tell me.” He played with my braid and his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips.
“I’m so lucky I met you,” I whispered, resting my head on his shoulder.
“Flat tires come in handy sometimes,” he chuckled as his lips brushed against the top of my head.
“Mhmm,” I murmured and kissed his bare chest.
“Olivia,” he warned.
“Trace,” I smiled at his tone and kissed a spot on his collarbone.
“What are you doing?” He asked as one of my hands roamed over his chest.
“I think…” I leaned up and kissed his neck, “…it’s called seducing.” I draped one of my legs across his and sat on his lap so I faced him. I placed my hands on his stomach, just above his boxers, and then moved them up slowly. They lingered on his chest, then wound around the back of his neck, and settled on his ears.
He squished his eyes closed. “It’s working. Then again, you don’t have to seduce me.”
I rubbed my fingers down the back of his ears. “Don’t make me beg,” I whispered.
His hands came up to grip my waist. “Olivia,” he said as if pained, “don’t do this to me.”
“I want you,” I sat back on his lap, staring into his eyes; trying to get him to see that I needed him.
His hands tightened on my waist. “I want this to be perfect with you,” he murmured fiercely. “I don’t want this…sadness, clinging to you. I want it to be only about you and me. No one else. I don’t want you to use me to erase your pain.”
“I’m not,” I kissed his chin. “This is about no one else, but you and me, and the fact that I want you in every way.”
