Pulled Within (13 page)

The heat made me yawn.

“I’ve never been jealous of Saint before,” the guy said, “but now that I see what he used to fuck every day, I think he was stupid to give you up.”

The water had almost filled to the top of the tub. My toes
reached
for the knob, but missed. I tried again. Each try threw me off-
balance, my back sliding up and down the end of the tub. Water washed over my face. I spit it out.

It tasted dirty. As dirty as this stranger.

His nasty eyes were on me…I could feel them. I couldn’t see him because he wasn’t standing under the light.

But neither was I.

“Pussy fully shaved…fuck,” he said.

I tucked my leg back in. Everything was now under the water
except my face. “Stop staring at me and get me a goddamn towel!”
The warmth was really working on me. Steam floated above the tub
and there was a haze spreading throughout the room. I could almost
taste its thickness as it mixed with the beer on my tongue. “I know you’re there,” I said. “I can hear you breathing.” And I could hear
my
words slurring, but I couldn’t form them any better. I had
completely lost control. My back fell a few more inches and my face tilted to the side, resting on top of the water. My lips dipped and teased the pool; a tiny wave formed from the breath leaving my mouth.

My calm exhales made my lids even heavier.

“Stop staring at me,” I whispered. “Please…stop.”

I could feel the bubbles around my mouth. I could feel the
darkness
surrounding me. I couldn’t see anything through it. My eyes were closed.

Everything had finally stopped spinning.

DROP, DROP, DROP
.

It felt like someone was dropping a needle against the backs of my eyes, again and again.

The reverberation pulsed straight up to my head, then down to
my stomach. Something had rotted in my mouth. My body ached.
Even
my toes throbbed. But the bed was surprisingly comfortable…at least I thought it was a bed. It was squishy, and there was something covering me. It was softer than the sheets I’d purchased the other day. And the mattress felt bouncier than the twin that was on the floor in
my room.

It was probably the hangover making everything on the outside feel better to compensate for how sick I felt on the inside.

I slowly spread out: first my arms, then my legs, carefully
lengthening each limb and stretching the muscles. I still couldn’t open my eyes. My brain couldn’t take the brightness I felt searing against my lids.

How many beers had I chugged last night?

“There’s some medicine right next to you on the nightstand
along with a big glass of water. You should take it…and drink every drop of that water.”

My body froze. So did my breath. I knew it wasn’t Caleb’s voice that was telling me to take the medicine, or Jeremy’s. And it certainly wouldn’t be Brady.

“Hart?”

“Don’t open
—
”

My eyes burst open, immediately meeting his concerned gaze as he leaned against the doorframe on the other side of the room. The sight of him was cut short when the stabbing in my forehead mixed with the sunlight that seeped in through the blinds. The pain became almost unbearable. “Ouch.” My palms went to my head, trying to balance out some of the hurt.

“…your eyes,” he continued, but it was much too late.

I rubbed, and the blanket fell out of my arms and to my waist, revealing a T-shirt…one that wasn’t mine. I yanked the comforter off
my legs and saw the pair of boxers I was wearing. Those weren’t
mine,
either. I clenched my eyes as hard as I could and pushed my fingers against my forehead, trying to remember what had happened last night.

I couldn’t recall any of it—not changing into Hart’s clothes (or
what I assumed were his) or coming to his house (where I assumed I was) or lying in his bed (which I didn’t even want to think about).

Had he put me in these clothes?

Or worse: had we done something before they had been put on?

I squeezed my thighs together, searching for that satisfying ache I got after sex.

“Nothing happened,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts in my body language, “if that’s what you’re wondering.”

My eyes opened again, watching him move from the doorway to
the end of the bed. His dark jeans hung low on his waist, showing
the
outline of his thighs, and his white T-shirt accented the curves of his
chest. His hair was wet. And as a breeze of his cologne and body
wash rushed past me, I found out that he smelled more than just clean. He smelled enticing.

I pointed at my T-shirt. “Are these your clothes?”

He nodded.

I wished I didn’t need to ask my next question. “Did you…put them on me?” I held my breath while I waited for his answer. It had been years since Hart had seen me naked. My body had changed so
much since then. Although I was too thin, I still had more curves than I did back then. And my breasts were larger, too…and I was fully shaved now.

And then, there was my scar.

Being unconscious meant I hadn’t been able to see the look on
his
face when he examined it, hadn’t known if he’d taken the
opportunity to really stare at it.

“I did,” he finally said. “You were naked when I found you. I was a gentleman, but it wasn’t easy. Your body, Rae…it’s only
gotten better.”

My eyes widened, and my body started to shake worse than it already was. “I was naked…” I took a breath, “…when you found me?”

He nodded.

How the fuck had that happened?

I couldn’t remember.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” I should have headed for the
bathroom.
Instead, I quickly swallowed the pills, pulled the blanket up to my neck, and leaned into the headboard. He had already seen me
without these
clothes on, but modesty wasn’t the point here. All I wanted was to hide completely, to crawl underneath the comforter and make it all go away.

I was back to wanting an umbrella.

“Tell me where we are and what happened last night.”

“Can I sit?” he asked quietly.

I tucked my legs beneath me to give him room and watched him carefully take a seat on the end of the mattress. His movements sent
me another whiff of his cologne. It was impossible to ignore the
smell, and the effect it had on me no matter how hard I tried.

“We’re at my parents’ old house. I bought it from them so it’s
now
mine.” I hadn’t glanced around the room all that much, but what I
had seen looked familiar. “Do you remember calling me from Caleb’s?” he asked.

I attempted to rewind my thoughts. The last thing I remembered
was the railing, the one that bordered the stairs in the basement. I remembered how I’d held onto it with both hands. Everything before that was clear, but nothing after. “No.” I shook my head,
trying once more. “I don’t remember.”

With his eyes softly on me, he explained how I’d called him in the early hours of the morning, and how I’d gotten sick on the
phone.
When I told him I needed to wash it off but hadn’t hung up, he
became concerned. I just disappeared. So he called Shane to find out where Caleb lived and came to get me.

“You left out the part about me being naked.” It was kind of
shitty of me to say.

He sighed and ran his hand over his cheek. That was when I noticed the cuts on his knuckles. They hadn’t been there when I’d
last seen him at the casino.

He caught me staring and put his hands behind his back. “When I found you at Caleb’s, you were in the bathtub.”

Fearing what he was about to tell me, I pulled the blanket up to my mouth and bit the edge. “What was I doing in there?”

This was the reason I almost always just stuck with weed. I
didn’t
black out when I smoked, or make stupid decisions. I knew better
than this. I knew what could happen when I lost control, and I knew what
men were capable of. Not just strangers, but the ones who were
supposed to love me, too.

“You were sleeping. Or more like passed out.” The muscles in his jaw clenched and his eyelids narrowed. “There was some guy in the bathroom with you and…shit.” He breathed again. This time it
wasn’t a sigh. It was deep, pained. “He was watching you. I don’t
know long he’d been in there…he promised me he hadn’t touched you.”

I felt the water and pills start to move back up my throat. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“And yet you trusted him when he ‘promised’ he hadn’t touched me?”

“He promised me more than that, actually.” The intensity in his face was almost frightening as he spoke through gritted teeth.
Slowly,
almost as though he wasn’t aware of his movements, his hands
found
their way back to his lap. They looked even worse than they had a
few
minutes ago. The knuckles on his right hand were raw, the skin
missing
on several of them. It appeared like he had tried to wash off some of
the blood. It was still there, circling several of the open scrapes.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

“What’s his face look like?”

He shook his head and shifted on the bed. “Not good.” I silently
reminded myself to ask Caleb who the guy was. Hart wouldn’t be
the only one to hit him. I had plenty to lay on him, too. “After I took care
of him, I took care of you. I dried you off and carried you to your
room.
I didn’t want to spend time looking for something to dress you in. I
just wanted to get you the fuck out of there, so I wrapped your bed
sheet around you and drove you here.”

I had told him on the phone that I was at Caleb’s. Had I told him I was living there, too?

“How did you know it was my room?”

“Caleb and Jeremy told me. They had my back the whole time once they found out what was going on, but I didn’t need their
help…and neither did you.” His eyes were looking through me again. “Do you know they’re drug dealers?”

I gave him a look.

“Oh yeah, Brady’s your best friend. Of course you know.”

I hated what he was insinuating. I hated that he found out I was living at Caleb’s. I hated that in the time he had been away from Bar
Harbor, I hadn’t grown up at all. I was supposed to have a good job
and a nice apartment and not run out of gas…and not get stared at
by some pervert while I was passed out naked in a tub.

But that had become my life.

“Hart, look
—
”

My legs were now stretched out to the side. His hand rose and landed on top of my foot. It was covered in a blanket, but I felt the
emotion his fingers triggered as if they were against my bare skin. “I don’t know anything that’s happened to you since I’ve been gone.” He scanned
my face, completely avoiding my scar. “You’ve obviously been
through
some shit, and I don’t expect you to open up right away and tell me everything, but I want you to know you can, whenever you want to.”

That was it. I couldn’t take any more.

“You want me to open up? You want me to tell you all the shit that’s happened to me?” My voice was getting louder and I didn’t
stop it. “How about this: someone I really loved left in the middle of the
night and made no contact whatsoever in the years that followed,
and he still hasn’t apologized for it.”

His fingers tightened on my toes. “Apologize…” Shock covered
his eyes and lips. It didn’t sound like he was testing me. It sounded like he honestly had no idea what I was talking about.

“You skipped town, Hart, in the middle of everything. You
hadn’t
even told me prep school was a possibility.” The stabbing in my
chest
had nothing to do with being sick to my stomach, though it wasn’t
helping at all. “You broke my fucking heart. And now you’re
suddenly
back, flirting with me at the casino and shoving poker chips and
your
phone number into my apron. You tell me all about why you left,
but you never said you’re sorry for doing it in the first place.”

His eyes dropped to my feet, his hand reaching up and brushing through his hair. Back and forth.

Back and forth
.

He tugged at the strands. “It had nothing to do with you. I promise.”

He just didn’t seem to get it. “That doesn’t matter! You left and didn’t say good-bye, and you never reached out again.”

When he looked up, the pain on his face stabbed the anger that
had been building in my chest. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Rae.”
Finally, it was there…and yet, I didn’t feel relieved like I thought I would. “I never would have hurt you intentionally; you have to believe me.
I’m sorry for all of it
—
for leaving you, and for not telling you
anything about it, and for not having the balls to reach out to you. I know how
much I fucked up, and it kills me that I can’t change that. You have
to
know how much I loved you.” He paused, waiting for me to
respond. I
didn’t. “I had every intention of finding you when I returned. I
didn’t
know if you were dating or married, and I didn’t know anything
about
your life. I figured I’d have to look for you, or at least ask someone about you. But on my second night here, I drove up to the casino to
unwind a little after a stressful day, and there you were. It’s like I
was meant to find you. That’s got to mean something.”