“I don’t know what to do. I need to think.”
Her insistence on cutting him out set off a fury that boiled up and erupted from his mouth. “I was sixteen when I was arrested for a dumb robbery. I was a scared boy trying to be tough, sitting there in that holding cell, waiting for someone to come. I knew I’d fucked up. I was in huge trouble. My dad had already left to live on the streets, and my mom… I waited and waited for her.”
Liza wiped her eyes. “Did she come?”
“Eventually. I was so relieved that when they brought me into a room to see her, I damn near cried like a pussy.” He tried to fight back the words, to just shut up. But as usual his mouth was way ahead of his brain. “I told her I was sorry, so sorry, that I’d be better. I’d shape up, make her proud. Get a job, help her out more. Find my dad and bring him home. Whatever she wanted. But it was too late. It’s always too late. Her face turned purple red, and she screamed at me, telling me I was a loser, the reason my father left and she was done with me.” He finally slowed the words, dragged in a breath, and added, “Just like you.” The last three words scraped up his chest and burned his throat. For one second his gaze locked on hers.
The pull between them was so powerful, it created a physical tug on his muscles to go to her. He wanted to beg, plead for another chance.
But what would happen the next time he screwed up?
He tore his stare away, yanked open the door and left. Ignoring the elevator, he burst through the stairwell door, down two flights and out of the building into the night.
He rubbed his chest, the pain knot morphing into ropes of pure agony twisting together. They’d been together less than two weeks. How the hell could it feel this shitty?
Less than an hour ago, he’d held her in his arms, buried balls-deep, making her cry out in pleasure.
Now he had nothing but his music.
* * *
Liza ran to the door, yanked it open and stumbled into the empty hall. Justice was gone, leaving only an echo of his last sentences.
I was a loser, the reason my father left and she was done with me… Just like you.
She closed the door and leaned against it, every cell in her body heavy and sick. He hadn’t talked about his mom except to say she’d bailed, while Liza’d prattled on and on about her dramas. Now she understood why Justice didn’t seem to hate her mom like much of the rest of the world did. Her mom had gone to prison to protect Liza, while his mom had left him in jail. He’d been a sixteen-year-old boy. As far as Liza knew, he hadn’t been in trouble before that. He’d just been a dumb kid.
Now he was a man, and the reality of how deeply she’d hurt him slammed home.
He offered to go to the clinic with you. And don’t forget, he backed you up tonight at Wylie’s. Gave you a safe place in his house. In a short time, he’d been there for her over and over.
And what had she done? The first bump in the road, she’d tossed him out. Wasn’t that why she’d tried to be so good for her aunt and uncle, because she was scared of being thrown out of the family?
Justice was right, she was a coward.
She couldn’t just sit there. She had to go find him. No overthinking, no weighing every move. Go. Take the risk.
Her stomach pitched with nerves. He could reject her, and she’d deserve it.
But he might not.
Only one way to find out. Pushing off the door, she ran to her room, threw some things in a bag, grabbed her purse and keys, then raced to her car.
Exhilaration and nerves had her breaking every traffic law, taking more risks, but the urge to get to Justice before the loneliness and guilt over his father drove him to the streets pushed her. Turning on the street, she heaved a huge sigh of relief. His car was there.
And so was he, standing by the Jeep, in the pool of the security light mounted above the garage. The harsh illumination showcased his granite jaw, shoulders and arms tensed beneath the shirt he must have thrown on in the house. His original shirt that he’d given her at the restaurant still sat in the washing machine at her apartment.
She should have called. Texted. Something.
Parking her car on the street, she didn’t let herself pause or she’d start thinking and give her fears a chance to gain traction. She grabbed her purse and got out. When did the night get so cool? Chills dotted her arms as she walked up the driveway to the man glowering at her.
His eyes never left her face. “Why are you here?”
Part of her wanted to turn and run at the flat, blunt question. Don’t be a coward, don’t live in fear. She didn’t let herself flinch or retreat. “I had to tell you in person. Not a phone call or text. I’m sorry. From the moment those girls came up to you in the restaurant, it was like my emotions took over my brain.” She tried to articulate the sensation of her feelings careening out of control. “I didn’t want to share you. And I realized in a way I’d always have to because you’re a public person. You’ve barely scratched the surface of stardom, and that freaking terrifies me. So I tried to get some distance and think, but then I wanted you there. And once you were in the shower you know what happened.”
“I forgot the condom.”
“We both did. I saw this rerun reel in my head—my life playing out like my mother’s. And I got scared, so scared. She was all in too. Always. Some guy took her fancy, she was all in. Drinking? All in. Drugs? All in. Me, her daughter? All in. Maybe she was a bad mom in a lot of ways, but she loves me—the only one who ever did, and she’s in a cage for loving me—”
“Liza, don’t cry when I can’t touch you.” His voice graveled, frustration lining every syllable. “It’s fucking killing me.”
Oh God, his words made her cry harder. That was who he was. He wouldn’t touch her because she’d pulled back, and he wouldn’t physically invade her space if he didn’t have her consent. He didn’t cross that line. Instead he’d told her in words exactly what he felt.
No lies. No games. No macho crap.
She needed to make him understand. “You don’t get it. I could love you the same way. Not yet, I mean…too soon…I know that.” God, did he think her a crazy woman? He’d never said a word about love. But he did this to her, brought out her passionate, honest side. Hot, salty tears rolled down her face in the unforgiving security light. This was her with blotchy skin, red eyes and nose, and a growing certainty that what she and Justice could have together was worth the risk. “Before now I thought that kind of passion was crazy and dangerous, and maybe it is. Or maybe it’s the best thing that could ever happen to me. All I know is I want this chance with you, Justice. I want us. All in.” She shut up, giving him the chance to reject her.
Justice opened his arms.
Relief and hope damn near burst her heart as she stumbled forward, grabbing on to him. Her tears wouldn’t stop, and she fisted his soft shirt. “I’m sorry.”
He tugged her head back, his eyes blazing. “You already apologized, baby. I heard you. You don’t have to keeping saying it. We fought and made up. Let it go.”
Shudders rippled through her. “Just like that?” It was that easy to be forgiven?
Wiping her tears, he kissed her. “Exactly like that.”
“Justice.” She leaned into him, absorbing the sense of acceptance. He’d forgiven her for a meltdown, her fear, and for hurting him.
He just forgave her. Accepted her.
All in.
How could something that felt this good, this perfect, be bad?
Chapter 12
Liza came out of the bathroom after washing her face and pulling herself together. She passed by the guestroom where Justice had put her overnight bag on the bed when they came in. She paused at the sight, thinking about the significance of it.
Justice came out of his room, wearing only gym shorts.
She lifted her gaze to his. “If I’m all in, shouldn’t I try sleeping with you?”
He glanced in the room and back to her. “You ready to do that? Truth.”
Sh
e didn’t let herself think. “No. Even if I fall asleep…I might wake with terrors.”
“That happens?”
“Not often anymore, but sometimes.”
He nodded. “Sleep where you feel safe. As long as I know where you are, I’m okay with it.”
As opposed to not knowing, like his dad. “You were going out to search for your dad when I drove up, weren’t you?”
“How did you know?”
She ignored the stab of guilt and took his hand. They walked to the couch where she pulled him down next to her. “You told me. And since I pushed you away tonight, I guessed you would feel the need to try again to find him.” She wanted him to know that she listened to him too.
“Not just tonight. Whenever I’m home, the compulsion is bad. It’s why I talk or text you before I go to sleep. You calm that sting of my guilt over my failure to find him, or to be enough for him to come home to.”
Her chest ached for him. It’d been hard for her with her mom in prison. But she’d known, intellectually at least, that her mom hadn’t wanted to leave her. And she knew where her mom was, even if she could only see her on occasional visits. One day, her mom would come home, but Justice was left in this awful limbo of not knowing. “How long has he been gone?”
“This time? A year. He came home when my grandma died. He stayed for two days, then once she was buried, he was gone again.”
Liza picked at her shorts. “He just came home? Doesn’t that seem coincidental?”
“Not really. He gets prepaid cell phones, and he used that to catch the announcement on our band website that we’d had to cancel a show due to a death in my family. He told me that much when I asked, but we didn’t talk much beyond that.” His lips stiffened. “He won’t even look at me. Won’t forgive me.”
“Forgive you? For what? You were a kid when he was hurt, right?”
“Yeah. Fifteen. It was bad. He was pulling injured soldiers out of sniper fire, and an explosion went off. He spent months in the hospital and rehabs with shattered bones, shrapnel injuries and burns on his left side.” He closed his eyes. “But the worst wounds are in his mind.” He ran a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe out the memories. “Night terrors and insomnia. In the day, sudden loud noises can send him into a panic.”
That was why he hadn’t flinched when she mentioned she had terrors sometimes. But his dad had gone through so much more than her. “Was it hard living with that?”
“I didn’t understand. I got the physical injuries, but I hadn’t expected him to change, you know?”
She nodded.
“For years, he fought for our country and was a hero. If I was on base with him, I saw him commanding respect. At home, we’d hang out, do things. He took me to my first concert at twelve. He loved rock music, beer and working on cars.”
“That’s how you learned to change the oil.”
“Yep.” He shrugged. “I like doing it. It reminds me of him, the man who still wanted to be my dad.”
Oh God, that broke her heart. Her father hadn’t been around much, so her longing had always been for something of a fantasy of what it’d be like to have a dad who loved her. But Justice—he’d had this man who cared enough to teach him all the things he loved, working on cars, going to rock concerts. It hurt so much worse to have it and lose it.
“And then he was wounded,” she prompted gently, needing to understand why he blamed himself.
“When he finally got home from the hospital, he withdrew and shut down. Drank. My mom worked more and more, finding reasons not to be home. One day, a couple of my friends came by, and we started playing a video game. There’s a car crash in the game, but it sounds like an explosion.”
Liza tensed. “Oh no.”
“Yes. Dad had been in the bedroom, must have fallen asleep, and started screaming, ‘Get them out.’ By the time everything calmed down, I was embarrassed and so angry. The guys left and I…”
“What?”
Pain deepened his eyes to a harsh blue. “I told him I wished he’d never come home.”
It hit her so hard she gasped.
“The next morning I got up, and he was gone.”
Not knowing what else to do, she wrapped her arms around him. “You didn’t mean it. Your dad has to know that.”
He was too stiff, unmoving. She crawled onto his lap, trying to reach him. “Justice, all kids say things. Parents know that. I used to get in screaming fights with my mom and tell her I hate her. The very night it all happened, she’d told me no way in hell was I going to a party with my dad. I’d told her then that I hated her. I snuck out when she was at work. And she still came to save me that night.”
He lowered his chin, meeting her gaze. “Your mom wasn’t injured and suffering. You didn’t tell her you would rather she’d died then come home broken.”
No she hadn’t. All she’d done was get herself into a situation that put her mom in prison and saddled her aunt and uncle with a damaged niece in the center of a Category 5 hurricane with the trial and fallout. But this was about Justice. He truly believed he’d done something awful, and now she understood his drive to find his dad and fix it.
Framing his face between her palms, she said, “Was your dad ever the type to hold back when you screwed up?”
Tiny furrows dug in around his eyes. “No. When I made a mistake, he made me remedy it.”
“Did he hold a grudge?”
“No. But he changed. It—”
“Yes he did. Because he hasn’t left the battlefield. It’s right there, going off in his mind, torturing him.” She leaned in. “It’s not you. I don’t know your dad, but I know a little bit about PTSD. It’s not you.” Her years of therapy had taught her that much.
Gripping her hips as she straddled him, he studied her. “You believe that?”
She could feel his longing to believe it, and Liza desperately wanted to give him reassurance. To support him like he did her with things like understanding she needed to sleep in her own space. “Yes. I don’t know if he’ll ever find peace, Justice, but you’ll be here for him if he needs you. You’re keeping this house for him. He has a home.”
He swallowed. “You undo me, Beth. Your compassion is amazing.”
“Yeah, well, don’t be too sure of that. Your dad’s easy, but your mom not so much.” She couldn’t get what the woman had said and done to Justice out of her mind. “She left you when you needed her. How could she do that?”
He brushed her hair back from her face. “She wasn’t ever really into being a mom. Every time my dad was deployed, she pawned me off on my grandma. My parents married because she got knocked up with me, and you know that story from your own life.”
Yeah, she did, and both of them were marked enough by it to fear a surprise pregnancy. Justice must have been even more panicked than he let on, and yet he’d been the reasonable one while Liza had freaked out. “True, but how could she not love you?”
“She loves attention. My grandma used to say it’s a quality I inherited.”
Liza laughed, lightening the somber mood. “Not wrong, Rooster.”
“Grandma’d love that nickname.” Growing serious again, he added, “My mom was fine when Dad was the big hero, but once he came home and couldn’t hold a job, essentially couldn’t function, they pretty much split up. Stayed-in-the-same-house-but-slept-in-different-beds kind of thing. She didn’t want to be the woman who left a wounded man. After he took to the streets and I was arrested, it was the proverbial straw. She was done and took off to build her own life.”
Unbelievable. Where had she gone? Did she talk to Justice? Did she know he was on the verge of winning a reality TV show?
“Forget her,” Justice said. “I want to talk about you. More about your secret world.”
“My books.”
“Tell me, or better yet, let me read one.”
“I haven’t finished any yet. I get to the middle, panic and start a new one. It’s a pattern.”
Skating his f
ingers over her hipbones, he lifted an eyebrow. “No shit.”
His touch feathered out in soft, seductive pleasure while his sarcasm pricked her pride. She was tired of being a coward and envious of his fearless attitude that got him out there on stage, singing in front of millions.
“I write romances. It’s my escape.” She’d never said that out loud to anyone, not even her mom. What would he think? “I know some people think romances are silly or unrealistic.” Except she loved that in her worlds people found a way to overcome problems and hardships to be stronger together. That fantasy had bloomed bigger and stronger in her dark and lonely, terrified nights.
“You’re talking to a man whose dream is superstardom. You can write any damn thing you want to, and you don’t apologize to anyone.”
Her chest swelled with so much emotion it felt like she’d burst.
“But no more quitting, Beth. Finish a story.” He kept touching her, making her melt, and added, “And let me read some of your work.”
* * *
A couple hours later, Justice stared at the wall separating him from Beth. She’d listened to him, cared about him, then gave herself to him.
The memory of her on his couch, writhing as he thrust into her—this time with a condom—threatened to send his dick right back to the hot zone. He couldn’t get enough of her. Wanted her right there in his bed, working on her book or sleeping. What did Beth look like when she slept? One day he’d find out.
But tonight she’d given him a priceless gift by coming after him. When he’d seen her drive up…he almost hadn’t believed it. It’d taken all his will to lock his muscles and wait, let her tell him why she was there. Find out if she thought he was worth fighting for. Hearing her say she was all in and wanted to give them a chance had seared him right to his soul.
Savaged Dreams: Savaged Illusions Trilogy Book 1 Page 17
