Heartbreak (Stripped 1.50)

I wish I had that kind of strength.

“Why aren’t you in jail?”

He shrugs. “I’m a minor, and there were mitigating circumstances. That’s what they call it—mitigating circumstances.”

“Oh,” I say, not really understanding.

“They’d been kicking me around, and it was documented by the caseworker. So it got labeled self-defense. I just have to keep my nose clean until I’m eighteen. Then I can get out of this shithole town. And I’m never coming back.”

I look down, drawing circles on the gray T-shirt he wears, feeling his steady heartbeat underneath. He wants to get out of this shithole. Of course he does. “Oh.”

“Do you think I’ll hurt you?” he asks softly.

“No.” I swallow past the knot in my throat.

His smile sends a shiver down my spine. “Then you don’t really know me.”

The truth is that I don’t know him that well. He asks a lot of questions about me—about my history and my foster homes, about my favorite movies and what kind of ice cream I like. Casablanca and mint chocolate chip.

He doesn’t talk much about himself. All I know is that he’s been kind to me, protected me, even without taking what is due.

“No,” I say, stronger now. “You’d never hurt me.”

“I want to.”

He’s just teasing me. Testing me. That’s what I tell myself. Or maybe he’s just punishing me for asking him directly about the rumors.

“I don’t believe you,” I say. My voice sounds braver than I feel.

“No?” He studies me lazily, from my arm slung over his chest down to my leg bent over his knee. “You have no idea what goes on in my head at night. The things I dream about doing to you.”

My breath catches. “Like what?”

His look seems to strip me bare—past clothes and nakedness, to the core of my being, where I’m both frightened and excited by his words. “Like bending you over and taking you from behind. Like tying you up so I could do anything I want to you.”

That heavy beat is my blood rushing faster. He’s strong and violent—he doesn’t even hide that. And I’m tangled up, my limbs entwined with his, caught in a spider’s web. “What makes you think I would let you?”

The corner of his mouth tilts up. His eyes look like they’re lit from the inside out, a knowing light he must have hidden from me all this time—along with his dark desires. His voice is barely a whisper. “What makes you think you could stop me?”

Fear clenches my chest, and I scramble away, half expecting him to hold me there. He lets me go, though, and I scoot a few feet back. I’m afraid, but I know that if I really thought he’d hurt me, I’d be running. Instead I crouch on the dusty floorboards and hug my knees.

“You’re just saying that to scare me,” I say, accusing.

He sits up too, much more leisurely. “Maybe I am. Doesn’t mean I’m lying.”

No, I have the uncomfortable feeling it’s not a lie. Except he hasn’t done those things to me. “Why haven’t you touched me?”

His hot gaze sweeps over me. “I’ve touched you, beautiful.”

“Not under my clothes. And you definitely haven’t—” Anxiety and something else rises in my throat. He hasn’t taken me from behind. He hasn’t taken me at all. “You haven’t tied me up or any perverted shit.”

He smiles, ducks his head, looking almost shy and boyish at the word perverted. “Because you aren’t ready for that.”

“What do you care?” I can’t help the bitterness that seeps into my voice. “I’m just some random girl at some random foster house. Any one of us could get moved tomorrow, and we’d never see each other again.”

His expression grows solemn. “Is that what you’re worried about?”

There’s a dollhouse up here, old and cracked from disuse. I run my finger across a faded white porch railing. “We’re like the dolls in this house. They move us around wherever they want, like we don’t matter.”