I was the one to look away. “I’m not, princess.”
“Tell me then.”
She was beneath me in my bed, my hard dick pressing into her, and I was going to have to bare myself to her. I could shed my clothes, I didn’t give a shit about modesty, but baring my soul, to have her know how bad I really was, it was heavy.
I wouldn’t take her until she knew the truth though. I wouldn’t be like her brother, like that asshole who took her virginity. She needed to be with me, completely, knowing everything.
She’d shared her secrets with me, and fuck, I had to share mine with her. That way if she had to walk away, she could because once I sank into her, she’d be mine, and there would be no going back.
I shifted, so I laid beside her, my head propped up with my hand. I swirled a finger around her navel.
“I grew up, like you, in Denver. A different part of town. A very different neighborhood. My mother was an alcoholic who slept with a bottle of whisky. Forgot about me. Food. Clothes. My dad worked a long line of dead-end jobs, got fired from every one of them. Took it out on us. When that didn’t bring in the cash he wanted, he broke the law. He took me with him on armed robberies.”
Yeah, that was when she sucked in a breath, her belly stilling beneath my fingers. She didn’t say anything, so I pushed on.
“By the time I was twelve, I was his getaway driver. I could just reach the pedals, and I was an accessory to state and federal crimes.”
Her mouth fell open.
I lifted my gaze from those lips, met her dark eyes. “I killed him. My father. When I was seventeen. We’d come back from a botched job. He got drunk, hit my mother. By then, I was too big for him to fight—I’d learned some things on how to defend myself on the streets, the playgrounds. But when I protected her, he came at me with a tire iron. She ran out. I’d heard later she went to the corner bar to forget it all in the bottom of a bottle of Jack. Left me to fight him on my own. He broke my arm before I got the weapon from him, turned it on him, knocked him out. The cigarette he’d been smoking fell, and it set the cheap carpet on fire. I walked out.”
She just stared at me, wide eyed. Yeah, now she knew the real me. All of it.
“I killed my father and got a stint in juvie for it, Harper. And I’m what you want?”
Her eyes were wide as she processed my words. Now, I knew her childhood had also been shit. Money sure as fuck didn’t buy happiness, but she’d had clothes, food, the finest schools. She hadn’t had love. Neither had I.
“Reed,” she whispered.
“You stayed good. You didn’t sink to the same shit as your brother, as your parents. I did.”
She shook her head, then pushed at me, so I’d move. She sat up and straddled my waist, forcing me to roll from my side onto my back. I set my hands on her thighs, looked up at how fucking gorgeous she was.
Every inch of her was blemish free, inside and out. She was like an angel in her pretty bra and panties, as if just putting my hands on her would get her dirty.
“You’re not what you say. Not even close.”
My fingers gripped her hips.
“You said I was smart—I know things. I know you’re good—you helped me. You could have taken from me, fucked me that night you found me with Larry. Could have let me blow you like I’d tried.”
My dick hardened at those crude words coming from her lips.
Her hair slid over her shoulders as she shook her head. “You didn’t. You’re honorable. Brave.”
“I’m not good enough for you,” I said, getting the rest of the truth out.
Her dark brow winged up. Slowly, she shook her head, her hair sliding over her shoulders, some of it falling down in front, the ends of it touching the swell of her breasts.
“You don’t get to decide that for me. You don’t get to tell me how I feel about you.”
“Gray saved
me.”
“No. No way. You saved yourself.”
My thumbs slid over her silky skin. “I met him in the army. In fucking Afghanistan. We grew up within two hundred miles of each other, and we met a world away. Told me to look him up when I got out. I did. He gave me an outlet for all my shit. Now I only fight in the ring. With rules.”