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But I hadn’t wanted to date him, so why had I been worried about losing him?
And why had I thought it was better to be with someone who treated me like shit than to be alone?
The questions disturbed me throughout our entire drive to Moon Ridge.
“Do you want me to park and shift?” Ford asked me, his voice still rough as we made it into town.
Though the question came out of the blue, I knew why he was asking; his friends still didn’t know he had shifted back.
And that was a messed-up thing for me to ask of him in the first place; keeping it a secret from the people he loved.
What was wrong with me?
“No. You should tell your friends that your wolf’s not hunting me anymore.”
He nodded, and then remained silent until we pulled into his garage. As the door rolled shut, he turned to me, catching my hand on the buckle. “Wait,” he said abruptly.
I waited.
“I’m sorry, Ebb. I shouldn’t have yelled at you; that was a dick move.” His voice was low and raw. “I… panicked, I guess. The jealousy was brutal, but I never should’ve taken that out on you, and I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“Jealousy?” I asked, incredulously.
“Of course.” He looked surprised that I hadn’t realized he was jealous. “You slept with him dozens of times, if not more. That made me want to rip his damned throat out so much it disturbed me even before I met the guy, and finding him on your bed like that…” He shook his head almost violently. “Part of me expected you to be glad to see him.”
I bit my lip, turning my head to look out the window at absolutely nothing while my head spun.
Should I tell him about me and Reed? Open up to him? I was pretty sure I’d already told Ford that he was the best I’d ever had in bed, but things had stayed firmly PG since then. And… well, I had never told anyone about me and Reed. Even Teagan only knew the basics; if she knew everything about how he treated me, she would’ve probably called him and cussed him out or convinced me to stop seeing him already. She’d never liked him, but she would’ve hated him for me.
Which I guess is why I’d never told her.
“Reed wasn’t good to me, like you were. Are.” I pulled out my phone and pulled up my text thread with the guy, handing it to Ford. I hadn’t told him when Reed texted me earlier that week, because I figured it would hurt him or piss him off, and I didn’t want either of those things to happen.
Ford’s expression darkened as he scrolled through.
Reed had never insulted me or anything; he was just selfish, and treated me like an object. Which I had enabled him to do, by showing up when he told me to.
“I didn’t always want to go,” I told Ford, turning my attention back out of the window. “When he invited me. I’m sure you saw it in the texts. If I said I wasn’t feeling it, he’d threaten to sleep with someone else, and I’d feel guilty or hurt and I’d show up where and when he told me to. And the sex…” My throat swelled. “I don’t know how much you want to know. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“All of it,” Ford growled.
“It usually wasn’t great. It was a distraction that was fun sometimes, and I could usually get myself off, but he was always focused on himself. It was never about me, or us. It was about him, and the sex. It wasn’t like the time you and I were together, or what happened in the car. Those times were raw, and they felt real. You made it about me, and I felt… important. It was never like that with Reed. Not once. I was lonely, and he was something to fill the void. So don’t be jealous of him; what you and I have is already much more important to me.”
My voice was barely above a whisper, but I knew I had his full attention. Ford didn’t ever half-ass anything when it came to us.
Or even just me.
“Can I touch you now? Just on the knee?” he asked me, his voice low.
I nodded.
“Say the words, Ebony.”
“You can touch me however you want to right now, Ford.”
He clicked my seatbelt undone, and then lifted me out of the chair. Depositing me on his lap, he nestled me up against his chest and hugged me.
