Western New Year was over, but with Lunar New Year upcoming on February 1, the city was still bright with color and celebration. I stared forlornly down at the streets filled with people and lights and lanterns. Vietnam knew how to celebrate in style. I’d never seen anything like it. The lights that hung from the buildings and lampposts and wound around the trees were on par with the most impressive Christmas displays. The lights on the street below looked like bright pink flowers and golden birds, while streams of fairy lights sparkled between them. It was truly something.
And yet, here I was, alone in my crappy hotel room because I’d stupidly slept with Austin Vale on New Year’s Eve.
Our friends had gone to a party tonight. I’d tagged along, thinking surely Austin had gotten my not-so-subtle hints that our drunken night together was a mistake. What had been annoyingly clingy behavior since had degenerated into obsessive. I finally blew up at him tonight when he got in my face for flirting with another tourist. I hated that he pushed me, and I was mean to him. Or that Desi’s boyfriend, Liam, had to tell Austin to back off and then walk me back to the hotel because my night was ruined. At least Austin knew the score now. I just hoped he’d give me a wide berth or I might have to ditch my backpacking companions.
They were a fun group, but I realized I wouldn’t really miss any of them if I left.
Maybe that was a sign I should leave.
That I should finally pull my shit together and face my big sister.
She hates you.
Tears burned my eyes. “I’d hate me too,” I muttered.
Robyn would never have needed a guy to walk her back to her hotel room. She’d never sit on a strange, crappy bed that thousands of other people had slept on, wallowing in self-pity.
“You’re sad without me.”
The familiar voice made me jump. My heart thumped in my throat as I launched up off the bed, spinning to face Austin. He closed the hotel room door behind him and turned the lock.
“How did you get in here?”
“You taught me how to pick a lock, remember?” He grinned, waving a couple of bobby pins.
Damn it. So I had. A few months ago, in Spain, Austin and I had worked together at this bar in Málaga. The boss was a creepy British guy, a total asshole. He kept a locked room on the premises, and it became a running joke among a few of us. We’d hazard guesses about what he kept in there, the guesses growing scarier as the weeks went on.
On our last night on the job, Austin and I had a couple of shots for kicks and I told him I could pick locks. I’d read about it as a teen and then practiced until I’d perfected it. I’d taught Robyn how to do it too. That night, I showed Austin, and we broke into the room to find it filled with stock we’d never seen. Expensive cases of whisky and gin, boxes of cigarettes, and cash. Lots of cash. Realizing there was probably something criminal going on, we got the hell out of there and hoped the boss didn’t have a security camera in the room.
The next day we were on a bus to Italy, anyway.
And Austin had learned a new skill.
Well done, Regan.
“I want you to leave.” My voice shook.
“Not until you tell me you feel the same way. Because I know you do.” There was a light in his eyes I’d never seen before. Utter faith. Utter belief.
In us.
Oh my God. He was delusional.
“Austin, we’re just friends. Sleeping together was a mistake. I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, but that’s just the way it is. Now please leave, or I’m going to call the police.”
“Good. Call them. Because if you don’t try to love me back, I’m going to kill myself.”
Aghast, I stared at him like I’d never seen him before. I felt like I hadn’t. We’d been in each other’s company for months, and I’d always thought he was just a good guy. Laid-back, great sense of humor, kind of a cute nerd. We had zero chemistry, so I’d only ever seen him as a friend, which was why I was so angry at myself for sleeping with him while drunk. I never would’ve imagined this would happen after sleeping with him, though. Never.
“You’re obviously drunk, right? ’Cause you’re talking crazy.”
“Don’t call me crazy.” He gave me a dark look. “It’s politically incorrect and incredibly insensitive.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So if I’m insensitive … what do you call a person who tries to emotionally manipulate someone into being in a relationship with them?”
“I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m telling you how I’ll feel, knowing you’re denying the truth between us. I don’t know what you’re running from, Regan, but you don’t have to run from me.” He crossed the room, and I backed up, my hands raised defensively.
“Don’t touch me.” I warned. He kept coming. “Austin, don’t touch me!” But he reached for me, so I planted my hands on his chest and shoved. “Get away from me!”
“Why are you fighting this?” he asked calmly as we grappled.
Fear and panic set in. I tried to get away from him, but he gripped my wrists tightly in his fists. I kicked at him; he cursed and jerked out of the way, my foot just missing a direct hit to his balls, but he never once let go. He was freakishly strong.
“Let go of me!” I shrieked.
“Not until you come to your senses.”
He was so calm. So collected. Even as I struggled in his arms like a wild animal.
I couldn’t get past the self-flagellating thoughts that I should have listened to Robyn when she told me to take self-defense classes. Why didn’t I listen to you, Robbie?
Tears escaped before I could stop them, and Austin tsked, pulling me into his body. “Shh, don’t cry. I know it’s hard to make yourself vulnerable, but you can be vulnerable with me. I love you so much.”
Rage flooded me, and I brought my knee up hard into his gut. His grip on me loosened as he grunted in pain, and I shoved him off, pushing past him, lunging toward the door.
A strong arm banded around my waist a mere second later. “No!” I shouted as I was hauled back against him. He was too strong. How was he so strong? “Stop it!”
“You stop it,” he hissed angrily in my ear as he struggled to hold on to me. “I tried to be nice. But it’s time to teach you who is in charge here, Regan.” Then he swiped a hand across the top of the sideboard where my roommate and I kept our stuff. My perfume bottle smashed on the wooden floor, the smell at once cloying.
“No!” I pushed against the arm that was crushing me, kicking out with one leg, and suddenly feeling nothing but air beneath me seconds before I found myself bent over the sideboard. The breath was knocked out of me as it slammed into my gut. As I struggled to draw breath, I was vaguely aware of the throbbing in my cheek where my face had smacked off the top of it.
I tasted blood.
“You’re going to remember what it’s like between us, Regan.” I heard Austin say over the buzzing in my ears.
Air tickled my backside, and I realized my dress had been shoved up to my waist.
A sense of unreality descended over me as I felt my underwear tear.
No.
This wasn’t happening to me.
This happened to other people.
It couldn’t be happening to me.
I heard his zipper.
No!
I tried to push up off the sideboard, but he had my arms splayed over my head, my wrists crossed, holding me down with one hand, while he used his other—
“No,” I whispered hoarsely, pushing against his hold. He had me pinned with the weight of his entire body. No.
“Stay down,” he demanded.
“No.” My voice got louder as I tried to dislodge him with my hips.
“Stay down!”
And then I felt him, ready, pushing between my legs.
Nausea rose up from my gut.
And rage.
I lifted my head and chest just enough, and I screamed as loud as I could. “HELP!”
“HELP ME!”
“Regan?!” a girl shouted from the hallway.
Desi.
“DESI, HEL—”
A large, sweaty hand covered my mouth, cutting me off. “Shut up, or I’ll kill—what the fuck!”
A loud banging drew my terrified gaze to the door. It shook against the jamb. Another pound and it broke away, splintering off the door frame, flying open into the room.
A frantic Liam and Desi appeared, and I sobbed in relief against Austin’s hand.
“You motherfucker!” Liam lunged at Austin and then his weight was off me.
I was aware of Desi’s gentle hands on me, of her smoothing my dress down to cover me, her embrace as she held me while Liam threw Austin out of the room. Their words of concern, their questions, became like gnats in my ear, buzzing around.
I was already somewhere else in my mind, planning my escape from Vietnam, from what had just happened.
Nothing happened, I whispered.
Nothing had happened.
You’re okay.
Nothing happened here.
27
Regan
Present day
* * *
“Liam and Desi wanted to get the police … and I should have.” I couldn’t meet Thane’s eyes. “I should have been brave and stayed and pressed charges, but all I could think about was running. Getting as far away from Austin as possible. If I could get away, then it never happened. So that’s what I did.”
Thane’s silence made my heart throb with renewed fear.
Now he knew.
I was a coward.
Finally, I looked up into his eyes. He was furious.
My stomach dropped. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You,” he bit out hoarsely, “have nothing to be sorry for. I just … I wish you’d told me. Then what happened downstairs …”
“No.” I reached for his face, scrambling into his lap to straddle him. “No, Thane, no. What we have,” I whispered against his mouth, fresh tears falling, “it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t want this to taint it.”
He gripped my hips, squeezing. “Why didn’t you tell me, then? Why did you lie to me and Robyn about what happened in that hotel room?”
Shame was this sickening ball in my gut. “Because … I’m not strong like you. Or Robbie. I’m not brave. And I thought if I just pretended it didn’t happen, then he wouldn’t have any power over me. I guess I got so good at pretending … that I really buried it. I buried it like it was just a nightmare. Until now. It flooded up and out of that deep, dark pit I’d put it in.”
“Mo leannan.” Thane cupped my face in his hands. “Our brains are strange and complicated. But when we bury things that shouldn’t be buried, our subconscious always pushes it back into the daylight. And now that it is”—his expression was tender but wary—“you can’t pretend anymore. We have to deal with it. And you must tell Robyn. You have to press charges.”
I tried to pull away, but he slid his hand around my nape to gently but firmly stop me.
“Please, mo leannan. Or I’m going to kill the motherfucker.”
It wasn’t a threat said in an angry but teasing manner.
He sounded extremely serious.
“You’re going to fly to the US to kill him?” I tried to ease the tension between us.
Thane didn’t think any of it was funny. “He tried to rape you. He stalked you. And he made you feel like a coward, which you’re not.”
I looked away.
He took hold of my chin to turn me back to him. “You are strong. You are brave. And I won’t let him make you feel like his victim.” He nodded. “Yes?”
Considering this, considering the rage I felt in that room, and then how I’d buried what he’d done so deeply that I’d served coffee to that piece of shit for weeks after, something hard and determined slid through me. “You’re right.”
Pressing a sweet, grateful kiss to his mouth, I sighed into him. “Thank you.”
“I did nothing,” he said gruffly.
“You did. You were you.” I kissed him a little deeper, and his hands flexed on my hips.
“We shouldn’t. You should rest.”
“I don’t want to rest.” I kissed his cheek through his beard, peppering soft kisses down his strong throat. “I want to make love to you. All you have to do is sit there and take it.”
Searching my gaze for truth, Thane hesitated.
He didn’t trust me. Didn’t trust me with my own emotions.
How could I blame him?
My inner question made me freeze over him.
Just because I’d buried a trauma didn’t mean I didn’t know myself.
I knew myself.
I glared at him. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I didn’t.” He frowned. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“It’s not that. I just think it’s too soon right now.”
“For who?” I slipped off him and slid from the bed. “Me? Or you?”
“Regan.” I heard him scramble to get off the bed, but I was already out of the room.
Just as we were about to pass his room, he caught up and pulled me to a stop. “Regan, don’t take this out on me. Please.”
I glowered at him. “You know what you don’t do when the woman you’re sleeping with tells you she was almost raped? You don’t sexually reject her afterward. It tends to make her feel like used goods.”
Thane jerked like I’d punched him. “I never meant it like that.”
Remorse flooded me. “I know. I’m just …”
“I know.” He hauled me into his arms, hugging me tight. “Let’s take a breath. We’ll go downstairs and have some dinner. Yeah?”
I nodded, though I still felt a little rejected.
Rational or not.
Thane took my hand and led me downstairs.
We avoided the kitchen table and ate dinner in front of the TV for once.
The atmosphere was strange between us. Thane kept us physically connected, snuggling with me on the sofa, kissing my head now and then, caressing my arm. And that night when we went to bed, he took me to his.
My heart was in my throat as he switched off the lights and hauled me back against him. I waited.
“Good night.”
I couldn’t say good night.
I was choking back tears.
Either he didn’t want me anymore or he didn’t trust me to know what I wanted.
Neither felt wonderful.
Wanting nothing more than to cry myself to sleep, I felt suffocated by his arms because his presence meant I had to hold it in, and now that I wasn’t holding anything in, I never wanted to bury my feelings like that again. It was too painful once they exploded. The awful panic attack in the bathroom was proof of that.
Pressing my lips together to stifle the sobs, the tears rolled down my cheeks, hidden in the dark.
So busy concentrating on not making a sound, I didn’t feel Thane tense against me. Seconds later, however, I heard him whisper hoarsely in my ear, “You kill me, mo leannan.”
And then I was turned as if weightless and hauled over Thane’s body as he fell onto his back. My palms landed on his chest and I straddled him in the dark. As my vision adjusted to the shadows, I made him out through the moonlight peeking in around the window blinds.
“Take whatever you need.”
Relief flooded me as he grew hard beneath me. An answering throb pulsed between my legs, and I reached for the hem of my nightdress, pulling it off, followed by my underwear.
Thane reached for my bare hips, his long, strong fingers caressing and squeezing as he undulated gently under me. I lifted off him but only to yank down his pajama bottoms and underwear just far enough to free him.
Then I pushed down onto him, and our gasps filled the room as his thickness filled me.
“So good,” I panted, leaning over to brace my
hands on his shoulders.
“Take it,” he grunted, gripping my hips harder now. “Take everything you need.”
Wanting his hands everywhere at once, I opted for moving them from my hips to my breasts. Thane groaned and massaged them, his thumbs plucking at my nipples.
“Yes, yes,” I gasped, riding him slow but deep. When I twisted my hips at a certain angle, he hit me exactly where I needed him. My hands curled into his shoulders for better purchase as I grew more desperate for the exquisite tension building inside me.
“Fuck.” Thane squeezed my breasts harder as his hips flexed under me, his movements constrained by his pajamas and boxers.
It made me hotter. Knowing I could do whatever I wanted to him.
Bending to his powerful chest, I licked at his nipples and then sucked before I bit him gently.
His hips bucked under me and then he sat up, changing the angle of my drives, roughly pulling my hair back so he could clamp his mouth over my breast. The relief of him playing with me as he always had excited me more than anything. We hadn’t changed.
He wouldn’t let us change.
My fingers scraped through his hair as his mouth tormented me, and my hips picked up pace. Thane released me to lift his head to mine, and we stared into each other’s eyes as I rode him. We held gazes, his hot and desire filled, tender, and mine the mirror image.
My fingernails bit into his back as I increased my pace, the pleasure building higher, higher, our breaths mingling as we panted against each other’s mouths.
And then that tightening coil inside me snapped, and I arched my neck, crying out my release, Thane’s lips pressing against my throat seconds before he groaned in climax.
I shook, trembling as the orgasm melted through my limbs. As I throbbed around Thane’s pulses, he kissed me. Deep, possessive, wet kisses that fired my blood.
“Again,” I said against his mouth.
He grinned. “I’m not twenty anymore, mo leannan. You’ll need to give me ten minutes.”
I shoved him none too gently back on the bed and slipped off with a little gasp that made him grunt. Then I shifted down his body, pulling his pajamas and boxers all the way off. And I kissed my way back up.
There With You Page 28
