didn’t get out,” he told her, his voice rough. “I got sent to prison.”
“Oh, no.” He looked at her then, bracing himself, but all he saw was sadness. “That must have been terrible. How old were you?”
“Seventeen. But I was a criminal, Louise. I did—I did a lot of bad things.”
“And pulled yourself up out of it, Jaiven. If you’re not going to judge me for the mistakes I made, then I won’t judge you.”
“It’s totally different.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t fight him on that one, which made him strangely glad. He didn’t want her rose-tinted view of his past. He wanted reality, and yet even now he couldn’t make himself tell her the whole truth. “But in some ways,” she continued, “we’re a lot alike, Jaiven. We both had lonely childhoods. We both went looking for love and acceptance in the worst place to find it. We both feel guilty for making a bad choice.” She paused, reaching up with her other hand to frame his face and look in his eyes. “We both want to move on.”
“Sometimes I don’t know if I can,” he whispered, and she nodded, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his.
“Then we’re alike in that, too.”
They remained that way for a long moment, silent, the only sound their mingled breathing. Then he eased back and asked, “So who helped you to get away from your husband?”
“A woman who saw me with Jack,” Louise answered. “I was working at the diner, the same one where we met. I’d dropped out of school to work full-time to help support us. I know, I know.” She shook her head, forestalling him, even though he hadn’t been going to say anything.
Or maybe he had. Maybe he’d been going to say if he ever met this Jack he’d knock his teeth back into his throat. Although considering her history, maybe that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“So what did this woman do?”
“She gave me a way out. But more importantly, she held up a mirror to myself. I saw myself for the first time—I saw how other people looked at me, how pathetic I seemed, and I hated it.” She let out a little sigh. “He’d come into the diner and started ragging on me like he usually did. He didn’t hit me or anything, just gave me the same old lines. And I started apologizing. Again.”
Just as she had a few minutes ago. Yeah, this was complicated.
“I started crying,” Louise said after a moment, “and I went into the bathroom to wash my face. The woman followed me, and gave me a card for a domestic abuse center in New York.”
“Why New York?”
“It was where she was from. She volunteered at the center there. But it suited me because I needed to get far away from Alabama. From the person I was there. It took me another two months to save up the money for bus fare. Work up the courage to leave.” She swallowed hard; he could feel and hear her ragged breaths. “But I did. I took a bus from Monroe to New York City and I found the center. They gave me a chance. A place to live, first of all, and they helped me find a job. They even helped me apply for night classes at Columbia, and then I ended up getting a scholarship. After that I didn’t look back. Ever.”
Except, Jaiven thought, when she’d met him. And he’d reminded her of this bastard. He pressed his face into her hair, the guilt and remorse he felt a hot lump in his throat.
He tightened his arms around her and drew her more securely against his chest. When he trusted himself to speak, he said, “I’m glad you told me all this. And thank you for telling me, because I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Not,” Louise agreed, “a laugh a minute.”
He laughed then, a low rasp of a chuckle, because at times like this he realized how much she absolutely amazed him. How strong she was. To endure what she had and be where she was, a successful, professional woman who was sexy and confident even if she didn’t always think she was? To have the courage to tell him all her stuff and still be able to joke about it? Unbelievable.
He wanted to tell her something of what he felt, but even as the feeling surged in his chest, the words bottled in his throat. He’d never done this before. Cared so much before. And somehow his own fears and failings got tangled up with all the admiration and affection he felt for her, and he couldn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms even more tightly around her and pressed his face against her hair again, breathing in her scent.
Louise slid her hand on top of his, entwining their fingers. “Would you…would you stay the night?”
Did she even have to ask? But before he could tell her he would, she clarified quickly, “Not—not for sex, fantasy or otherwise. It’s not that I don’t want you, but…” She trailed off uncertainly, but he still got it. All of this revelation had left her too raw for sex, especially with their history. He understood that. He felt it himself.
Well, sort of.
“I’ll stay if you want me to,” he said. He touched her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head so she was looking at him. “But if you change your mind and want me to go, I’ll do that, too.”
Her eyes widened and she blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But I won’t want that.”
“Even so.”
Silently, still clasping his hand, she led him from the living room to her bedroom, its gabled window overlooking a tiny cement courtyard in the back, the steep roofs of other brownstones stretching on like a sea of slate.
She didn’t pause on the threshold, but he did. He remembered lying on that bed with her, taunting her with her own desire, forcing her to admit she wanted him. Humiliating her, because he’d been so angry, so hurt. What a pathetic bastard he’d been.
“Jaiven.” She turned to him, pressed her cold hands to his cheeks. He blinked at her, the memories banished for a moment, even though his stomach still churned with guilt. “Stop thinking so much,” she said quietly. “And just hold me.”
“That sounds good to me.” He craved the closeness of her body next to his, her warm curves pressing into his hard angles and planes, softening him. He needed her for that, he realized. He needed her so much.
And so he pulled her into his arms and she pressed against him, her hands sliding around his waist and locking around his middle. Then after a moment she eased away, gave him a mischievous smile. “If we’re going to do this right,” she said, “let me brush my teeth and change into pajamas.”
He laughed, grateful for the moment of lightness. “That’s doing it right?”
“In my book.” She undid the tie on her dress and slipped out of the clingy black jersey, revealing a black lace bra and pants. Jaiven swallowed hard.
No sex, he reminded himself. Don’t even think about it. And if that was the penance he needed to serve, then so be it. He would do whatever it took.
He stripped down to his boxers and T-shirt; he normally slept in the buff but he knew that wasn’t going to happen tonight. A lot, he acknowledged, wasn’t going to happen tonight.
But
