Dirty Sexy Inked (Dirty Sexy 2)

He exhaled a deep breath and finally met her gaze, his blue eyes filled with a torment she didn’t fully understand. “Is what Connor said true?” he asked, his voice raspy. “Back in high school, did he . . . ”

He was waiting for her to finish the sentence, as if he knew that what had happened between her and Connor hadn’t been consensual. “He raped me.” There was no sugarcoating the truth.

He visibly shuddered and swore beneath his breath, his agony even more pronounced now. “Jesus, Katrina.” He stared at her, his face etched with so much pain. “When?”

“Do you remember that huge party at Rick Ackerman’s house when his parents were gone for the weekend? It was a few weeks before graduation, and you, me, and Connor went together.” When he nodded, she folded her hands in her lap and went on, feeling calmer inside than she’d expected. “After you went off with Jessica later that night, Connor started making lewd advances and touching me inappropriately. He was drunk and obnoxious and I just wanted to get away from him. The downstairs bathroom was being used, so I went upstairs, and I didn’t even know that he’d followed me until he pushed me into one of the empty bedrooms and locked us in. He was so much stronger than I was, and I just couldn’t stop him no matter what I tried to do.” She stopped there, knowing that Mason didn’t need details.

“I’m so sorry.” He dragged his hand down his face, his remorse a tangible thing. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

She shook her head in confusion. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Mason. It wasn’t your fault.”

He didn’t seem convinced. “I swore after what those bullies at the park did to you the day we met, and after learning about your stepfather’s abuse, that I’d always protect you and keep you safe. And Jesus, I completely failed you when you needed me the most.”

Mason’s words shocked her. She’d been so worried that he’d look at her differently after discovering the truth. That it would change the dynamic of their relationship. Never would she have thought that he’d blame himself for something he hadn’t had any control over.

She stood up and walked over to him, needing him to realize that he wasn’t responsible for the actions of another man. “You didn’t fail me,” she said, looking directly into his dark blue eyes and hating the self-recrimination she saw there. “You didn’t know what would happen that night, and there isn’t anything you could have done to change the outcome. You need to believe that.”

He let out a laugh that lacked any humor. “If I hadn’t let my goddamn dick rule my brain back then, I would have b

een around you that night, and Connor never would have touched you.” He cupped her face in his big hands, his touch so gentle and caring as he stared into her eyes. “You carried this around for eight years. Why didn’t you tell me that night? The first thing you should have done was come and find me.”

She managed a wry smile. “I think you were busy with Jessica,” she said, trying to lighten things, because the truth was much harder to admit.

“I don’t give a shit,” he said vehemently. “You are the single most important thing in my life, Katrina. There never has been, and never will be, another woman who will ever matter more to me than you do. Ever. Why would you doubt that I wouldn’t be there for you? That I’d do everything in my power to make sure that something like that would never happen again?”

“Once it was over, there wasn’t anything you could have done to change that fact.” Knowing the rest of her explanation was more difficult for her to say, she tried to turn her head to the side so she didn’t have to look directly into his eyes, but he wouldn’t allow her to retreat from him in any way. “After Conner assaulted me, I was ashamed and humiliated and I felt so . . . dirty. And he told me that if I said anything to you, he’d just say that I came on to him, that I wanted it, just like he did today.”

“And you honestly thought I’d believe him?” Mason asked incredulously.

She didn’t miss the hurt in his tone. “I was only seventeen at the time, and I kept thinking about what had happened with Owen, and how my mom didn’t believe me when I told her that he was touching me inappropriately. And how Owen turned everything around and blamed me for being a slut, and that my mother chose to side with a man she barely knew, over her own daughter.”

His gaze softened in understanding as his thumbs tenderly glided along her cheeks. “I get it.”

But there was more she needed to tell him. “I was also afraid that after Connor’s attack, if you knew what happened, that you’d look at me differently. That you’d treat me differently. And I never wanted it to change our friendship.”

“Oh, Kitty-Kat,” he said softly as he drew her into his arms and hugged her tight. “I had an uneasy feeling about Connor after a conversation we had at Kincaid’s the other night, and I should have listened to my gut then and told him to fuck off.”

Katrina burrowed closer against Mason’s warm, strong body and laid her head on his chest. “No more regrets or blame, okay, Mason? I don’t want to live in the past anymore.”

“Okay,” he agreed as he wrapped one arm around her waist and slid the fingers of his other hand into her hair and gently massaged her scalp. “As long as you promise that you won’t ever keep secrets like this from me again.”

She closed her eyes and breathed in the warm, masculine scent of him. “I promise.”

“There’s one more thing I need you to be honest about,” he said after a long moment had passed. “The scars on your hip . . . you said it was a relapse. Did it happen after that night with Connor?”

She swallowed hard. No more secrets; she’d promised him. “Yes.”

He swore succinctly, and when he squeezed those muscular arms tighter around her, she knew that he was internalizing her response.

“No more regrets or blame,” she reminded him. “It’s done and in the past. The only things I want to think about are the future and us.” Hopefully, you still want that, too.

“About the future and us . . . ” He gently eased her away so that he was looking down at her face, his eyes suddenly very serious. “We need to talk about that.”

She had no idea where this conversation was headed, or where it would end. Her biggest fear was that her behavior over the past three days had pushed him too far away and changed everything between them, or he’d come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to be tied down to one woman. She’d always known that was a possibility.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” he started out tentatively, which only increased her sudden bout of nerves. “You know my past. You know I grew up without real parents and had a mother who was an addict and prostitute, then went to prison and left all three of us boys with an abusive prick. And even though Clay raised me and put up with all my crap, I always felt unworthy of being loved. I thought I wasn’t good enough for anyone to love. It was easier to push people away than let them close and risk any kind of rejection. And because of that, I just fell into an easy, no-commitment pattern with women because it was safe and uncomplicated.”

He paused for a moment, and Katrina waited patiently, knowing that whatever he had to say was difficult for him, because he wasn’t the type of guy to talk about emotional stuff.