Damage Me (Crystal Gulf Book 2)

by Shana Vanterpool

  “I know!” he exploded. “She wants to see him. She wants it. She hasn’t wanted anything in a long time.” He gave me a look that I ignored.

  “You can’t take her there. He doesn’t deserve to meet her.” See her good. That shit was mine.

  “Dylan,” he whispered. “I can’t go in there. I can’t see him again. I can’t.”

  He sounded childish, small, like the kid who used to scream in his sleep. The little boy who’d cry as I tried to cover his bruises with my mom’s foundation because he was embarrassed that people would tease him about his marks.

  “Then don’t go.”

  “But she wants him.”

  “She only thinks she does. She has no idea that she’s better off not meeting him.”

  “He tried to kill me.” His breathing was too loud and ragged. “Harley tries to help me, but I can’t forget it. I can’t forget Hillary. And she won’t stop staring into nothing. She keeps begging me. Hillary wants the one man who ruined my life.” He turned to me, breaking apart in the front seat. “What do I do?”

  I don’t hug men. Not my father. Not Bach. Not my damn self. The only hugs I’d been given had come from my daughter, Harley, and Hillary. But I wanted to hug him because Bach was never the same after that shed burned down. I felt an intense rush of guilt, so much that I wanted to puke. All that time he ran, all those times I judged him—he’d been trying to escape too. Harley hadn’t betrayed me. She saved my best friend. She was Bach’s, and I forgave them both for what I had accused them of. But most of all, I forgave myself.

  “I’ll take her. You can wait in the car.”

  He closed his eyes in relief, sitting there as it overcame him. “Are you sure?”

  “Bach …”

  “Don’t,” he muttered. “Just don’t.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Does Harley know?”

  His humorless chuckle answered for him. “I wasn’t going to tell her until we were on the road.”

  “No shit, she doesn’t want you to go. Asshole,” I tacked on because it was easier than saying I’m sorry, Bach. “How about this? You spend the weekend here with her, and I take Hillary.”

  “Hill won’t go for that.”

  “Too bad. She doesn’t have a choice.” My tone was darker than the conversation probably warranted, but I knew why he said that. Hillary didn’t want me around. Fine. But there was no way in hell I was letting her near Tyler Bachmen without me between them.

  “She won’t like this.”

  “Stop being a pussy. Take yourself home and then let me have your truck.”

  “Seeing you is going to make it worse for her.” He gave me a pointed look. “She thinks she has feelings for you.”

  For some reason, I felt his words rather than heard them. “She also thinks she wants to meet Tyler. She’ll get over it, over me.”

  “I thought the same thing about Harley too.” And with that, he took off.

  Hillary and I were done. We hadn’t even really gotten started. Intoxicating, desperate moments did not make a relationship. Wanting a woman to hold me up did not help me out when she was gone. “You’d want that? Me with your sister?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. You did disgusting shit. I did disgusting shit. We’re shitheads. We don’t even deserve the air around either woman. But I want that air. Don’t you want that air again?”

  My head fell against the window with a painful thud. “Hillary had no one else. She doesn’t have feelings for me.”

  “She had me. She had her mom. She chose you.”

  “Does your pussy-ness have no limit these days?”

  “Not anymore.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice.

  When he headed not for our apartment, but for Crystal Gulf, I knew he wasn’t kidding. He was going to drive his sister to meet their father while he burned.

  His fear reminded me of the second before I pulled the trigger during combat. That subtle odor that portrayed what we really felt. It was in the air. An electric current that made your senses sharp and your heart pound. It reminded us that we were humans under our camouflage. That beneath the cold hard exterior we donned to survive we were men, we were fathers. We were human beings trying to keep our lives and protect those that couldn’t protect themselves. Harley had spent the last few weeks trying to make me understand that I wasn’t an evil monster, but a soldier. I was a soldier.

  But I still felt like a monster.

  There were too many truths out there to disprove her insistence. My daughter and I had begun repairing our relationship. I had her on the weekdays while Whitney worked. However, I had this fear that I would spend the rest of my life trying to repair the holes I created before she was born. And I was okay with that. I would do my best to give my daughter what she deserved. I would love her the way my parents didn’t. I would protect her, hold her, and make sure she knew she was loved and cherished. She would never be me, a fallen monster struggling to hide his grotesque features from everyone around him.

  Her beauty would blind the world.

  My scars, though finally starting to heal, were another truth that I let Spits down. I’d followed his rules and had to watch the life fade from his eyes. I cleaned my wounds every night, but I’d always bear the mark of my fall.

  One thing I’d gained was Harley’s friendship. Her light was a small glimpse, and I was thankful to have it at all. I didn’t deserve it. I was a liar who punished her for every lie I told. But she was giving me a shot to be her friend; I wouldn’t blow it this time.

  The last truth was waiting outside on the curb when Bach pulled up. A truth I yearned for. She was huddled in a ball wearing a black hoodie and a pair of jeans. Her eyes were staring at an oil puddle on the asphalt, head downcast with an air of depression swirling around her. Her backpack was beside her, stuffed full. Too full for a weekend trip.

  “Where’s her car?” I asked.

  “Patty took it because she got a job at the coffee shop downtown. She walks there every day. Saves every dime she makes. She wants out. How am I supposed to deny her that?”

  “Why doesn’t she just move in with us?” The words were out of before I could think about them. And then my heart fluttered, my dick hardened, and for the first time in weeks, I felt alive at the idea of having this woman by me again.

  He sighed. “Patty would never forgive me. She doesn’t want to let her go as it is. If I helped, she’d have my balls.”

  I imagined the place he was in. Betray the woman who pulled him out of that shed or give his sister what she craved? “She can have my room.” My broken girl was so out of it, she didn’t even know we were there. She looked so drawn down my heart burned. You did this. She just wanted to forget and you stole that from her.

  In answer, Bach honked the horn.

  Hillary’s head shot up, and then her eyes landed on me in the passenger seat. It was the first time I’d seen her face in too long. Her blond hair was in a ponytail. Her beautiful face was pale and she had bags around her perfect eyes. She looked tired, surrounded in a painful bubble. My brain awoke from the darkness. My lap ached to have her on it. My arms wanted around her—I had never wanted anything so much in my life than for Hillary Hayes to settle on my left thigh and slide her sweet tongue inside of my mouth. Only then would things be right.

  But Hillary didn’t feel that way. Anger flashed in her eyes, and on the edge of that, betrayal. She rose with her bag, features stone. Even then she was adorable. This tiny, golden being enraged by my presence. It made me want to make myself even more known. Take my shirt off to see her reaction. Watch her eyes fill with the lust I knew I instilled in her. I may not have her heart, but I had her lust.

  She stomped around the front of Bach’s truck and wrenched his door open. “What the heck, Bach?”

  He gave her an impassive look. “Did you sleep last night?”

  “Why is he here?” She wouldn’t look at me, looked anywhere but my face.

  “Because he’s taking you to see our dad. I
f I have to go in there I might not come back out.”

  Her face softened, and she sighed, touching his arm. “Will that make you feel better?”

  This woman was amazing. Breaking, falling, not sleeping, and all she wanted to know was if her brother was okay with meeting the monster that broke them both. I wanted to reach across the seat and pull her down on me, roll around in the damage I caused to forget who I was one more time. It was already happening. Around her, there was no time to think about anything else but the desire to have her.

  “Yes.” He pulled his seat forward. “Get in.” As she crawled into the back, his cell rang. He silenced it and then turned on the radio, no doubt quieting the sound of Harley’s calls.

  I could feel her behind me.

  I could smell her skin.

  I wanted to smell her skin.

  Flashes of us together, her moans in my neck, her body taking my pleasure, assaulted me. We hadn’t had anything but a couple months together. Moments of intense escape that had gotten me unknowingly through my darkest time. Hillary had held on even when I pushed her away. And now she was gone. In the backseat, but cold as stone, no longer warm for me, far away from the sexy woman who’d wanted my bad.

  “I’m not hungry,” she grumbled when Bach pulled into a fast-food restaurant.

  “Too damn bad,” he growled back. “You look like you’ve lost ten damn pounds. What do you want, Dylan?”

  I decided to play along this time. “Cheeseburger and onion rings. And a float. With extra ice-cream.”

  “Hill?”

  “Whatever, Bach. All I want is to meet my dad so I can move on. From everyone,” she added quietly.

  She wasn’t moving on from me.

  “She’ll have the fried chicken sandwich, extra cheese. Maybe a side of the tater tots. Oh, and get her a strawberry milkshake. She looks like a strawberry kind of girl.” I grinned to myself, feeling her rage emanate from the back. I wouldn’t look at her either. I had this feeling when I did I’d have to give her an answer I wasn’t sure I had.

  “I’d rather have your float,” she mumbled after Bach handed off her food.

  My dick hardened. “You want my float?”

  “Yes, Dylan. I want your float.”

  My name on her lips made my balls tighten. Without looking at her, I held it up. Her fingers, still cold from her shake, brushed mine as we made the exchange. Look at her. “You can have my float, Hill.”

  Bach turned the radio up.

  As we drove to the prison, this pressure filled the car. It came off of Bach in thick, uncomfortable sweeps. It made the food in my mouth taste like shit, but eating was one more thing I was forcing myself to do. Eat, even if I felt guilty for the food in my mouth. Walk, even if I felt guilty because Spits would never take another step. Dream, because even my nightmares were better than no dreams at all. And ignore the angel in the backseat, because she deserved better than anything I had to give her. All I had was strawberry milkshakes, so I drank it to the last drop.

  “Bach?” her sweet voice implored. “Why do you think he approved this visit?”

  He shrugged, eyes on the road. “I don’t know.”

  “Our dad knows we’re coming. He knows it and expects it. Why?” She sounded confused, apprehensive even.

  “If you don’t want to go, then don’t go,” I suggested. “Tyler isn’t going to give you the answers you want, baby.”

  She inhaled sharply for some reason and whimpered. Still, I didn’t look at her. “What answers do I want?”

  “I’m guessing you want to know what I’ve always wanted to know from my old man. Why didn’t you love me? Why didn’t you want me? What about me wasn’t good enough?” By the time I finish I sounded like the little boy I’d been. The one who’d stare at his father and wanted him to say it one time. Just one time. But I accepted a long time ago that my dad didn’t love me. He had sex, I was the product, and that was it. “Hill, Tyler doesn’t deserve to meet you. He doesn’t deserve to look into your beautiful, good eyes and hear your voice. He is a monster, and that’s it. Monsters don’t change or do the right thing because that’s what you want. If you’re going there for that, then he’s only going to make this worse for you.”

  I didn’t look at her.

  Her sob was so deep, so painful, it made my chest tighten and my own eyes dampened.

  “I’d love to give you a different answer,” Bach spoke up, tone strangled. “But Dylan’s right. He doesn’t deserve you.”

  No one does.

  “But …” She sucked in a breath. “I feel like if I could just know my other half, see proof that it exists, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so lost.”

  All of a sudden Bach shot across the highway. Horns blared, and he screeched to a halt on the side of the road. Putting his truck in park, he spun around, eyes burning. “You think he’s going to be the one who helps you find yourself? You think that son of a bitch is going to give you what you need to feel better? Please tell me you’re not relying on him to help you when you have me right here.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  So I did it.

  I turned around and met her eyes.

  Her broken tear soaked lost eyes.

  She held me captive, yearning for so much, so much that I was afraid to give her, to want.

  I expected her to do what she always did. Settle on my lap, the one place she felt safe. Instead, she brought her knees to her chest and hugged them, turning her sights away.

  “I love you, Bach. But I want to see him.”

  I sat back and stared out the window, feeling identical to the day I left Harley on the beach. Like everything I wanted was behind me, and I’d been the one to leave it there. Bach silently returned to the road. We all sat in silence. My left thigh burned, wanting her on it.

  Maybe all that time I wasn’t the one who was safe.

  Maybe she was the one who made me feel that way all along.

  ***

  Hillary

  I’d waited nineteen years for this.

  I would look my father in the eye so I could finally face myself. This new me. The Hillary who’d been attacked, survived, and now had to accept that she’d never be completely like her old self. She saw things differently, and that was okay; I wanted to be okay with that.

  But Dylan Meyer wasn’t helping me.

  He sat in the front seat, as gorgeous and bad as the day I met him. His white shirt was tight over his chest and hugged his biceps, leaving his long tattooed arm free to ogle. His hair was a wayward mess like it had been, but he’d put some weight on. His cheekbones weren’t as hollow. His eyes weren’t as sunken. But his lie was still just as painful. This man had been my refuge, and I thanked him for that, even made peace with it—what I hadn’t expected was my heart to fall out of my body the moment I saw him.

  Those cobalt eyes took one second to remind me of all that I was missing. His arms and his protection. Dylan understood how I felt. I knew he did. I felt it. He wasn’t the same man anymore either. He was a father, a soldier, a fallen man who had to stand once again. That was me. We were the same. But my darkest hour had been an inconvenience to him. How could we move past that?

  I had to accept that he was gone. He wasn’t mine anymore. He hadn’t even been to begin with.

  But my legs twitched, yearning to crawl to him. My heart hammered, wanting him to feel it. My tongue tingled, wanting to taste his. The man in the front seat was more noticeable to me than my own breath.

  I resented him for being what I couldn’t have. He was everything I yearned for. Protection, someone who understood, and a safe place to fall apart and be held together. I had this feeling that I would never want more than that, and if he was all of those things, then what would I do later on? Over these past few weeks, I’d tried to stand on my own two feet. I tried to find comfort within myself because if I didn’t do that who else would give it to me? I struggled to remain standing. I fell down a lot, and accepted that my footing might not be sta
ble for a long time, but as long as I could believe in my stability, eventually I’d learn to be this new me.

  The drive to the prison created a palpable tension in the car. I’d begged Bach for this, fought through his denial, and had finally gotten what I wanted: my dad. Sometimes in order to win you had to face the monster. Sometimes the monster was the only proof that you were strong. I would meet the man who didn’t want me because I wanted myself. I would say goodbye to the man who never muttered hello. I would settle this want I’ve carried around with me for nineteen years, so I could finally breathe.

  As we approached the prison, my heart fell. It looked so cold, so gray and unwanted. It housed the demons. Zane would end up in there one day. I knew this. He got away, but evil can only escape for so long. He’ll rot one day for what he did. I had to accept this too. I had to heal so he lost. I was an angel before my fall, and I could still fly with my scarred wings. Men like him would never know what it felt like to soar.

  I would soar again.

  Bach pulled into the designated visitor’s lot and cut the engine. I pretended not to notice his shaking hands. I wanted this.

  “Ready?” Dylan asked, opening his door. He glanced back at me, handsome face concerned.

  I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to move on.

  I nodded.

  “Sweets,” Bach said. “I just want you to know one thing before you go in there.” He turned around to face me, his eyes bleeding. “You’re going to be better someday. So will I. I know that won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. And it won’t be because of our dad. It will be because you’re strong. It will be because you are an amazingly good person who won. You’ll be better because of you. Not because of anyone else. Okay?”

  I nodded once more and pressed my lips to his cheek. “Okay.”

  “Go. You have two hours. I’ll be here.”

  I scrambled out of the truck to find Dylan holding on to the edge. His face was scrunched in pain and sweat already dripped down his temple even though the air was cool this afternoon.

  “I won’t be able to bring my crutches in there.” And then he did something that broke my heart.