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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AARON DREW IN a breath and looked up to the sky, anywhere but at Julie. She was right; she did deserve to know. At the time, he’d been so caught up in his own pain that he’d thought it best if he just left Dalgety, rather than inflict any of his shit on her. It’d all been too much for him to handle. All those years he’d told himself that Julie would get over it, she was young, and that kind of puppy love didn’t last forever. But he could see now that he’d been wrong. It wasn’t mere puppy love. It’d been much deeper and stronger. Julie had suffered, he was beginning to see that now. Suffered the agony of being abandoned by an asshole like himself. She’d revealed during one of their many talks that she hadn’t had a single long-term relationship since he’d left, and while it was possibly supreme arrogance to think she’d been pining over him, it was also the plain truth. He’d hurt her deeply, cut her to the bone and left her scarred and wretched. She did deserve to know why he’d abandoned her, he owed her that much.
“Do you remember that night?” he began, tipping his head farther back and concentrating on the stars. “We had a great night.” He sighed with the memory of it. “You made us a picnic, and we took it down by the creek. And you stole a bottle of champagne.” He smiled. It’d been her first taste of the bubbly liquid and she’d got tipsy and giggled all night.
“Yes, I remember all of that,” she replied, impatience obvious in her voice. “Very clearly,” she added, not hiding the snark in her tone. “It’s afterward that I want to know about.”
“Okay.” He held his hands up, palms outwards. He was hedging, he knew that. “Afterward, I went home.” He hesitated. Here it came, she’d never look at him the same way ever again. “When I got home, my mother was waiting up for me. Sitting on the couch, drunk as a skunk.” It wasn’t uncommon for him to come home and find his mother practically unconscious on the couch. She’d start on the cardboard box of wine around five every afternoon, and usually by nine would take herself off to bed, swaying and incoherent. But the night of his nineteenth birthday, something had been different. He saw it in her eyes the minute he walked through the door. Something spiteful and cruel, as if all that bottled-up misery she kept hidden from him was finally screaming for an outlet.
“She stood up and wished me a happy birthday. But there was nothing happy about her smile. It was kind of cruel, and she laughed, but there was nothing funny that I could see…” Aaron hesitated again. Julie was still staring at him, but she’d taken her hands off her hips now. “I’d always known my mother begrudged celebrating my birthday. She would’ve happily let it slide on by without even acknowledging I’d ever been born, most of the time.” His chest contracted at the thought, as something heavy lodged inside. Julie was never aware of his mother’s ambivalence toward him, he’d been careful to make his childhood seem completely normal, as if his mother was the most caring person in the world. But he knew he hadn’t completely fooled her by some of the probing questions she sometimes asked.
“I’m sorry, Aaron, that must’ve hurt you.” She took a step closer.
“Not really. Well, perhaps it did,” he added, as an afterthought. And he’d turned that pain into something he recognized, something he could deal with. Anger. “Whatever, I suddenly got really enraged, like someone had flicked on a light in a room that’d been dark my whole life. I finally asked her what her problem was. Why my birthday seemed to cause her such pain?” Aaron remembered the moment so clearly; it was etched into his brain forever. The way his mother’s face had twisted into a sneer. But it was more than contempt he saw in her eyes, it was loathing.
“And what did she say?” Julie prompted.
There was only one way to say it, so Aaron recounted his mother’s tirade, word for word.
“Because I regret having you,” Donna had spat at him. “You should never have been born. I thought I could go through with it, but after you were born, every time I looked at you, I saw him.”
Aaron had been so shocked at his mother’s outburst that it took a few seconds to understand that she meant his father.
Donna continued, as if she hadn’t just broken a pact of silence she’d held sacred for the past nineteen years. “The truth is, I never speak about your father, because he’s no father at all. He’s a rapist. He raped me. He was some stupid bouncer at a nightclub where I used to work, and he caught me walking out late one night. No one else was around. No one heard me scream.” His mother seemed to run out of steam after that and sat awkwardly on the couch. “You’re a bastard child. Conceived in hate, not in love. That’s why I never enjoy your birthday. Because you have a rapist’s blood running through your veins and every day is a reminder of what happened to me,” she ended heavily.
Aaron had stood for uncounted seconds, dumbfounded, watching his mother calmly take another gulp of her wine, as if she hadn’t just ripped his whole world to shreds.
He drew in a breath and brought his mind back to the present. “So, you see why I had to leave. I’m a monster in sheep’s clothing, I just didn’t know it.”
“Oh, no, Aaron.” Pliant arms wrapped around his waist and a soft body pressed up against his. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.” Julie lay her head on his shoulder and held him. His first reaction was to push her away; he didn’t need her pity. He was only telling her his story so she’d understand. That he was damaged goods, he was contemptible, not worthy of her sympathy. But it wasn’t pity he felt flowing through her, as she pulled him in closer, her hips coming to rest against his; it was tenderness, kindness, acceptance.
“You’re nothing like a monster. Look at you, you protect people for a living. Protect them against people like you father,” she said, lifting her head and staring into his eyes. “You could never in a million years hurt someone. And you’re certainly no rapist, that’s for sure.”
Her words took a grip on his heart. She understood him like no one ever had. Why hadn’t he been able to see that back then? There was no condemnation or outrage, just pure clarity that he was more than what he made himself out to be. Even if he didn’t agree with her, he felt the veracity of her emotions, felt her optimism wash over him.
“I think the great Yondu said it best,” Aaron said stiffly. “He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy.” It was another Avengers quote, but as soon as he heard this one, it’d hit him like a steam train. It was just like his mother had said, his father was no father at all.
“I’m sorry you grew up without a true father’s influence,” Julie said. “But I think you’ve turned into a wonderful man, despite all that.”
As he stared down at her, her lips parted ever so slightly, his fury at himself, at his mother, at his father evaporated as he was captured by her gaze. Time seemed to slow, and his heart jolted in his chest. A night owl hooted somewhere in the distance, soft and haunting. He wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, wasn’t conscious of anything other than the pulse in her neck, and the scent of the warm, sweet woman in his arms. She hadn’t reproached him as he expected; she’d done the exact opposite and embraced him. Embraced his pain. Used her body to soothe him, just like she’d done when they were younger. And his body wanted more. The spark was still there, and one touch from her fanned the flames into a bonfire.
He didn’t want to talk about his mother or his sad little life anymore. He wanted to press his body all along hers. Feel the softness and heat of her. He’d missed her so much. His hands around her waist drifted lower to cup her ass through her jeans. She drew in a small gasp, but didn’t try and stop him.
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you tonight,” he said, voice suddenly husky. “When you were dancing, something inside me just needed to be out there with you. Touching you.” His lips buzzed down the side of her neck, as he breathed in the smell of her warm skin. “You smell good, too, by the way,” he mumbled into her neck. Unexpectedly, she tipped her head to the side to give him better access, and his cock tightened immediately. She wanted this as much as he did. He pushed his thigh gently at the apex of her legs, until she let him settle between her thighs, the hard length of his erection pushing into her belly.
Slowly he turned her, sidling around the trunk, so it was between them and any prying eyes that might see them from the campfire. Using the trunk to hide them, he rested her back up against the bark and captured her mouth with his.
It was as soft and pliable as he remembered. He recalled this same kiss. He knew this feeling, as if kissing Julie had been imprinted on his mind. Something he could never forget, no matter how hard he tried to erase her from his memories.
His tongue ran over the seam of her lips, and she opened her mouth to him, just as he knew she would, and he became lost in her. Their kiss deepened, became hot and delicious and familiar. He hungered for more, almost as if he could make up for twelve years of not kissing Julie. No other woman had been like her. He’d dated other women, of course. Not one of them had ever left him with this feeling of…inevitability.
Julie groaned, low and soft in the back of her throat and he crushed her to him, wanting to get close; closer still. Julie welcomed him in, deliberately rubbing herself against the hard ridge of his erection. It felt so good, so right. He grabbed her hips, letting his hands slide under her shirt and explore her waist and the curve of her lower back. Oh, God, he needed her. He wanted to take her here, up against the old river gum.
“Julie? Are you out here?”
Aaron tore his mouth from hers. Shit, it was Dale. Immediately he stepped away, but didn’t let go in case she toppled over, letting her find her equilibrium first.
It took a few seconds for her to open her eyes, and when she did, they were dazed and still full of longing.
