HERO: An Unfit Hero Novel

by Faiman, Hayley

  I closed escrow on a house and land. Something I’ve been working toward since I was eighteen years old. It’s all bittersweet, because not only am I leaving tomorrow, but I have to confess some shit to Exeter, some shit that I’ve been holding back for a while.

  “My high school girlfriend, Sammi. We thought that we were in love. We were really young,” I begin.

  Exeter lifts her gaze to mine, her eyes searching my own, waiting for me to continue. She nods, already knowing that part of my story.

  “Sammi told me she was pregnant after a football game one Friday night our junior year.”

  Exeter’s eyes widen and she reaches for my hand. My fingers twitch at the feel, something that I didn’t quite expect from her.

  “What happened?” she breathes, though it seems like she may already know.

  “Sammi decided to terminate. I didn’t know, she didn’t tell me. She did it, all the while I was buying an engagement ring, and looking into careers where I could make some money as soon as possible. It’s how I found linework.”

  “Wyatt,” she whispers, her eyes watering.

  Shaking my head, I run my fingers down my beard, tugging on the end. “I broke up with her, walked away and swore I would never look back. I was angry that she took my choice away. So fucking angry. I wanted that baby. She wasn’t ready, and neither was I, but I was determined to love them, forever. Do the right thing.”

  Looking down at my plate of untouched food, I lift my gaze to hers. “I carried that anger with me every fucking day, Exeter. Sammi and I continued sleeping together, for almost fifteen years, we went back and forth with one another. I made sure to remind her how much she hurt me every fucking time, and she took it all, until she walked out, until she left town. Then I met you.”

  “You mean, up until just a few months ago you were still sleeping with her?” she asks, her mouth dropping open slightly.

  Clearing my throat, I lift one of my shoulders in a shrug. “Yeah,” I swallow thickly.

  She watches me. I wait. Keeping my eyes on hers, I fucking wait for her response. She doesn’t do what I’ve imagined. Instead, she tilts her head to the side. “This is what you’ve been so quiet about lately?”

  “It’s a big part of my past,” I admit.

  “Do you still love her?” she asks.

  I think about her words, what I feel for Sammi isn’t love, it never was. We were kids. I was infatuated with her, just as she was with me. If she loved me, then she wouldn’t have done what she did, young or not.

  That’s what hurt the worst, that I was willing to be with her forever, but she wasn’t willing to do that with me. It wasn’t that I loved her, and she didn’t reciprocate, because I don’t know if I ever did, past teenage puppy love.

  It was the feeling of massive rejection.

  The way she made a choice for me, without even asking me.

  All of it, combined, is what made me so goddamn angry, and to be honest, I still fucking am.

  “No, sugar. I’m not in love with Sammi, haven’t been for a long time, don’t know if I ever really was.”

  “Wyatt,” Exeter breathes, reaching for my hand from across the table.

  I extend my arm, meeting her halfway. Our fingers lace together, and I lift my gaze from our laced fingers to her pretty light blue eyes. She gives me a half-smile, it’s almost sad and I wonder what that means.

  Exeter frowns, her eyes flick to the side then they come back to meet my own. “There’s something Sammi and I have in common,” she begins.

  My breath hitches, and without consciously realizing it, I hold that breath. Exeter’s hand trembles in mine, she inhales deeply, closing her eyes before she exhales. Then her blue eyes meet my own.

  “I had an abortion, Wyatt. I didn’t tell the father, I didn’t tell anyone, nobody but MawMaw and Emily.”

  Her words come out in a rush and my hand goes slack in hers, but her grip tightens, and she refuses to let me go. I look at our hands, at the whiteness in her knuckles, in the way she holds on, while I appear to completely let go. If she weren’t here right across from me, if we weren’t in a restaurant, I would stand up, turn around, walk away and never look back.

  If I didn’t love her.

  “Whose was it?” I ask, my voice sounding garbled.

  She doesn’t speak. Lifting my head, I look at her, waiting for her answer, but her eyes are pinched closed and she’s shaking her head from side-to-side.

  “Don’t make me say it out loud,” she whispers.

  My gut twists. I know the answer. Fuck, do I know the answer. “The other guy, who was he?”

  She lets out a ragged breath. “Before I found you, I slept with men who I knew didn’t want anything but sex. It was easy, Wyatt. This, this stuff is hard. With one-night stands, or guys too high or drunk to care, nobody cared what my past was. I could hide it, easily. With you, it’s different. You deserve to know it all.”

  I look directly at her, watching as she slowly opens her eyes. I’m not angry. I feel like I should be, like there is a lake of red-hot rage bubbling inside of me still, but it isn’t because she made the decision that she did.

  It’s because one of the potential fathers was her own fucking father. It’s because he’s a sick fuck who forced her to make that decision by abusing her. The desire to end his life is that much fucking stronger. I can’t let him breathe free air, not anymore. He’s caused too much fucking turmoil and heartache.

  He will die. It will be slow. When it’s done, I will smile.

  EXETER

  I watch him.

  He’s thinking, but I don’t know what he’s contemplating. Is it about me? About my past? About our future? As much as I don’t want to, I wait. Because knowing it’s over is going to hurt a hell of a lot more than just waiting, living in ignorance for a few more moments.

  “Our circumstances are so different, yet the outcomes are the same,” he eventually says.

  My brows knit together, and I lift my gaze up to him. I bite the corner of my lip, waiting for him to say something else, waiting to see what will be next, what is coming. He tilts his head to the side, his fingers re-gripping mine, his thumb making small circles on the space between my thumb and index finger. It sends desire throughout my entire body.

  “Wyatt,” I warn.

  He shakes his head. “I was angry with Sammi for years because she took away my choice. She did something without even talking to me about it. One day she was telling me she was pregnant with my baby, the next day that child was gone. There’s a big difference.”

  “You aren’t upset with me?” I chance asking.

  Wyatt dips his chin, his eyes finding mine and pinning me in my spot. “I can’t be angry with you, Exeter. Just like I’m no longer angry with Sammi. I’m still very much hurt by her choices, but my anger is gone. I have you, and I know that I wouldn’t if she had kept that baby, we would have never found one another. I know it’s cliché, but I feel like everything really does happen for a reason. God knows it doesn’t always feel like it at the time,” he snorts.

  His words cause me to jerk in my chair. My lips tremble and as much as I try to fight them back, they come anyway. Tears fall down my cheeks, my eyes meet his, and I nod.

  “I could be so hateful because of my past, I could be so different, but I’ve had MawMaw to show me that holding in my anger doesn’t make what happened disappear. So, instead, I’ve worked hard. Stayed focused, and then you came into my life and have shaken me to my core, Wyatt,” I admit.

  It’s hard, admitting to someone, anyone, how you feel about them, but especially in this moment it’s hard to admit to Wyatt how I feel. How he makes me feel. I never believed in soulmates, never thought that there was just one person in this world meant for another.

  I’ve always believed that everything relies on circumstance and happenstance. That you will be with who fits you at the time, and either you make it work, or you drift apart. At least, until this very moment.

  There is no
way to explain how Wyatt and I have found one another. How we have had some of the same experiences, but in much different ways.

  “I’m glad that you’ve always had your grandmother. Just like I’ve always had my parents. They held me up and helped me when I was at my lowest. I feel like maybe Rylan and Emily would have different experiences had someone been there for them like that. I mean, I tried with Rylan just as I’m sure you did with Emily, but it’s different when you’re a kid trying to make your way through life and trying to help another kid your own age,” he murmurs.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I give him a smile. “You’re right. Emily. I tried so hard with her, I tried to be there, but she refused me every step of the way. She seems to be getting some real help now though,” I admit.

  Seeing Emily today was difficult, but I needed to and she needed me as well. She didn’t admit it at first, she was adamant that she was doing this all on her own, but after a few minutes her lips wobbled, and she broke down.

  She’s had so much counseling in the facility, surrounded by people who have had similar pasts to us, and I can see a vast improvement with her. I wonder if maybe, I should have gone to a place like that too when I was younger.

  “You’re a million miles away, sugar,” Wyatt’s deep voice cuts in on my internal thoughts.

  With a small shake of my head, I lift my gaze back over to his and smile. It’s a sad smile, the situation and conversation nothing but sadness. It seems that, that is the theme to our lives, at least the teenage and early adulthood years. Maybe not from now on though, hopefully.

  “I had a good visit with Emily today. She’s doing a lot better, and I was just thinking about that.”

  He nods once, then releases my hand and I watch as he reaches for his silverware. His stuffed pork chop, mashed potatoes, and fried okra probably completely cold by now.

  “Everything’s okay?” I chance asking before he begins to cut into his food.

  Wyatt’s eyes lift to mine, a slow smile appearing on his lips. “Yeah, sugar. I think everything’s good. That’s all your secrets?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

  My lips twitch in a small smile. “Yeah, that’s everything. I think it’s quite enough, don’t you?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.

  He chuckles, then dips his chin a bit. “Yeah, sugar, I think that’s quite enough, but I confess I have one more blow to deliver.”

  I hold my breath, my eyes widening, and I wait for that blow to be delivered, thinking it’s going to be really fucking bad.

  “I leave for Florida tomorrow, six in the morning. Which means you’re going to have to move into the house without me. I’m calling Ford and Louis to help with the few things I have in storage, but sugar, it’s slim fuckin’ pickin’s. I was fixin’ to buy all new shit when we moved in, our shit, but I won’t have time until I get back,” he explains.

  My breath leaves me in a whoosh. “That I can handle,” I state.

  He smiles, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip. “Yeah?”

  Nodding, I reach for my fork so that I can eat the burrito bowl in front of me. “Yeah, I mean, if they don’t mind, they can just pick up my furniture from the trailer and I can move out of there completely. That is if you still want me to move in with you?”

  Wyatt lets out a snort, it’s so loud that the table at the end of the patio looks over at us. I can’t stifle my giggle, but he isn’t laughing.

  “You live anywhere but my new house, and I’ll be so fucking pissed off, I’ll spank your ass black and blue,” he warns.

  I hum. “Okay, Wyatt,” I breathe, squirming in my seat slightly.

  His gaze tips down then lifts back up to me. “Or I won’t spank you,” he grins.

  “I’ll move in with you, baby,” I smile.

  He nods. “Obliged. Now eat your food. This is our last night together for the foreseeable future.”

  My stomach drops from his words. “How long do you think…”

  Wyatt holds up his hand. “I don’t predict. It could be three days; it could be three months. I really don’t know, sugar. It all depends on the weather and the amount of damage and crews they have available.”

  We finish our meal, my mind no longer occupied by the silence that Wyatt had been giving me, or by my secrets plaguing my own mind. Everything is out in the open now, and I can’t deny that the feeling is very freeing.

  We finish our food, Wyatt doesn’t waste a moment paying the bill, then his hand is wrapped around mine and he’s tugging me out of the door and toward his truck. Before he opens my door, he backs me up against the door. His hands cradle my face and his lips touch my own.

  “Fuck,” he hisses. “Fucking, fuck, I do not want to leave you,” he rasps.

  I hum as his head slants and his lips crash against my own. His kiss is hard, relentless, ruthless and downright perfect. His teeth nip my bottom lip as he slowly breaks the kiss.

  “We don’t leave, I’ll fuck you right here against the truck, in plain view. Give the town something to talk about for a few months,” he murmurs against my mouth.

  “Wyatt,” I groan.

  He grunts, pressing the evidence of his hard length against my stomach. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Without another word, he loads me in his truck, and then I watch as he jogs around the front, jumping in next to me. The engine starts with a roar, and he shifts it into gear, before pressing his foot against the gas and we’re off toward the hotel.

  I can’t deny that I want him to hurry, to relieve the ache between my thighs, to fill me with every part of him. Over and over, until the sun comes up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  EXETER

  Wyatt’s mouth slams down against mine. We’re back at the hotel, the moment completely bittersweet. His tongue fills me, sweeping through my mouth in one quick move. He moans and I swallow the sound, loving that I can make him react like that. His hands wrap around my waist and he pulls me closer against his chest.

  My breasts smash against his chest and he swallows my whimper. I need more, so much more. He knows it too, but he’s making me suffer. Lifting my hands, I wrap my fingers around his biceps and hold onto him, my fingernails digging into his shirt and skin.

  His lips slowly break away from my mouth, before they travel down my neck. His teeth scrape, then nip my skin as they reach the swell of my breasts. I hate the shirt that I’m currently wearing, wishing it were on the floor, or anywhere but on my body.

  “Wyatt,” I sigh.

  His fingers fist in my shirt and slowly, too damn slowly, he drags the fabric up my body. Releasing his biceps, I lift my arms and allow him to bring the shirt over my head. He tosses it somewhere in the room, his fingers finding the clasp of my bra next. Expertly, he unhooks and drags my bra down my arms, discarding that as well.

  Dipping his chin, I let out a long exhale when his lips wrap around one of my aching nipples. His hand finds the other, his fingers pinching the bud and gently tugging. My head falls back with the sensation, my eyes closing at the same time.

  Wyatt sucks, nips, pinches and tugs on my nipples, moving from one side to the other. Then slowly, when I’m a complete mess of need, his mouth travels down the center of my body, stopping just above my jeans.

  Lifting his eyes to mine, I bite the corner of my bottom lip as I watch him through my lashes. His fingers find the button of my jeans and I watch as he pops it open with one quick flick of his fingers. Then he drags the zipper down. I inhale through my nose, exhaling through my mouth, waiting for more.

  His fingers dance along the top of my exposed panties, he grins as my belly shivers beneath his touch.

  “What do you want, sugar?” he asks, a quirk to his lips and a mischievous glint in his eyes.

  “You know what I want,” I breathe.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t. Tell me,” he urges. Clenching my jaw, I inhale again then let the breath out as I shake my head once. “Tell me,” he softly demands again.

  Lifting my
hand, I run my fingers through his hair, my eyes never leaving his. “I want your mouth between my legs, I want you to make me come,” I say, my words barely above a whisper.

  He grins, tugging my jeans down all the way to my ankles. “Step out,” he murmurs.

  Happily, I quickly step out of my jeans, kicking them off to the side, along with my shoes. Standing above him, while he’s on his knees, wearing only my panties, I look down at him and feel more beautiful than I ever have in my entire life. He doesn’t care that I carry a little extra weight in my middle, that my ass is a little rounder than it probably should be, or that my thighs are a little thicker than need be.

  When he looks up at me, I just feel breathtaking.

  Wyatt’s hands slowly slide up the outside of my thighs, stopping once they’ve reached the waist of my pink panties. I suck in a breath when he slowly tugs them down my legs.

  “Fuck,” he groans when my pussy is exposed, as if he hasn’t seen me in months.

  He leans forward, my fingers flex against the strands of his hair as he places a gentle kiss against my clit.

  “On the bed. Ass up,” he orders.

  “Wyatt…”

  He shakes his head in one sharp move. I don’t say anything else, releasing the hold I have on his hair, my hand falls away from him and I turn around. Slowly, I walk toward the bed, climbing onto the mattress, I lower my chest down, spreading my thighs and wait.

  I feel his breath wash over my skin, then his hands grab hold of my ass and spread me wide. He blows air on my pussy, it’s wet, practically dripping, I’m sure. Then, I feel him shift behind me, his face moves toward my back entrance and his hands spread my ass farther apart.

  Wyatt’s tongue touches my asshole, it’s warm and wet, the sensation rolling through my entire body. I arch closer to him, knowing that I shouldn’t like this as much as I do. It’s so forbidden, so dirty and wrong, but none of that matters. What I know, doesn’t matter, only what I feel.