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"I don’t."
She firms her lips. "For a second there, I thought I saw a glimmer of the man behind all that hatred you’ve built up over the years."
"Keep dreaming. If you’ve been holding out hope you’re going to soften me, you’re wrong."You’ve already gotten through to me, and it’s fucking frustrating.This is not how it was meant to be. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy fucking her. I wasn’t supposed to relish getting close to her.
I rise to my feet. "Get some sleep."
I turn on her and stalk toward where I threw off my shirt earlier, when I hear, "Cade, oh, my god, what happened to your back?"
I freeze, then reach for my shirt and scoop it up. I draw it down over my torso. "Not your concern."
"Who did this to you?"
Her voice is soft and full of concern, and damn, if I don’t feel another layer around my heart peel away.
I sit down on the bed and reach for my socks when the mattress shifts behind me. "Tell me, Cade, please." She touches my shoulder, and I wince. She doesn’t remove her hand. Instead, she slides off the bed and comes around to stand in front of me. Not able to stop myself, I take in her upturned tits, the hard buttons of her nipples, the nipped-in waist, her thick, flared-out hips, and those rounded thighs between which is the triangle of flesh I adore.Adore? What the fuck? Where did that come from?I shake my head to dislodge the thought.
She’s not wearing any clothes, and of course, I knew that because I put her to bed without any. Then I tortured myself watching her sleep, knowing she was naked under the covers. Her scent crept under my skin and insinuated itself in every cell of my body. The taste of her coats my tongue and my fingers, and the feel of her hot slickness still clings to my cock. I took her virginity, and it shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does. It’s affected me in a way I never anticipated. How am I supposed to continue with my plan of taking revenge when… The reasons for my vendetta are quickly being bulldozed by the new memories we’ve made in the last few weeks?
"Cade?" She sinks down to her knees between my legs, then balances herself on my thighs. "Talk to me, please. Those scars. They were…"
"Made by whipping."
She pales. "Whipping?"
"It’s what happens when you sleep rough and fall in with a bad crowd. A street gang, to be precise.”
“A-a gang?” she stutters.
I narrow my gaze. “After I was expelled, Knight encouraged me enroll in a state school. That’s where I fell in with a local gang. My parents tried their best to make me see reason—not that it made a difference. I was too angry, too consumed by the need for revenge. I graduated, left home, then joined the gang full-time. Turns out, being a natural athlete meant I was really good at breaking into shops and fleeing before I got caught."
"You robbed people?" She begins to pull away, but I drop my socks and grab her wrists.
"Oh, no, you don’t. You started it. Now, you get to listen to what happened after you got me expelled from school."
"I didn’t mean to. I had no idea that would be the consequence of agreeing to call you and ask you to come to the bell tower that night. If I’d known how it would end, I never would have told you that I needed you," she pleads.
“You shattered my ability to trust in people. You broke my heart, Abby.”
“I... I broke you heart? Does that mean—”
“Any fledgling feelings I had for you are now buried under the weight of your deception.”
She pales. “Don’t...don’t say that, Cade.”
“Why? Does that surprise you? You didn’t think I carried a torch for you all these years, did you?”
She glances away.
“I owe you, though. It’s thanks to you that I understood the only person I can trust is myself. When I was expelled, I realized, the more money you have, the more power you have to swing things in your direction. All that mattered afterward was making money fast.”
She peers at me from under her eyelashes. "I helped Knight look for you,” she says softly.
“You did?”
“We had to do it without telling our parents. Luckily, Knight was old enough to have started working, so he had access to the resources necessary to find you. It took him a year before he tracked you down to the hospital. He told me you were okay but refused to give me any more information after that. He knew I’d reach out to you, and he didn’t think that would help either of us.” She looks between my eyes. "The reason you were in the hospital—” She swallows. “Was that the—"
"The whipping? Yes."
