He grunted. “A good man? Makenna, I’ve done what I know. Treated women the same way I saw growing up. I’ve continued the pattern.”
No, he’d told her he avoided relationships to keep from hurting and getting hurt. Sure, he may have become a stripper and, well, prostitute in some sense, but he hadn’t carried on his parent’s tradition of severely dysfunctional marriages. The idea of Thunder acting in a violent or even disrespectful way toward a woman almost made her laugh. “No, it’s not the sa—”
“I was fourteen the first time I fucked,” he plowed on as though not even hearing her. “She was another unfortunate soul who’d been raised in the brothel. A year older than me. Her name was Paris. She was awkward and painfully shy, but we were both curious about sex. It dominated everything in the house, yet we had no idea what it felt like. So we decided to find out for ourselves. For me, it was fucking awesome. But I was a hormone-fueled teenaged boy. Paris cried, but pleaded with me to just get it over with.”
He shook his head, and her heart squeezed. No doubt, the memories seemed alive in his mind as though they happened yesterday instead of over a decade ago.
“I felt like such a monster. My stepfather discovered us, curled up in her bed afterward, naked, tears still staining Paris’s cheeks. I got a fist bump out of the deal where Paris got a lecture about sucking it up and getting more practice, so she’d be broken in and useful by the time she started working at eighteen.”
“God, Thunder…”
He nodded. “Fucked up, right? We were encouraged to keep fucking, but I was told my balls were on the line if I knocked her up. I’d loved it, hell what fourteen-year-old boy with hormones running rampant wouldn’t? But Paris hadn’t. She’d avoided me at all costs after that until one day when I finally cornered her. Not for sex, but to find out why my only friend wanted nothing to do with me. She’d broken down in my arms, sobbing in a way that had torn my heart in two. Turned out, that hadn’t been Paris’s first experience. Her father molested her throughout the years, and her head was more fucked up than mine.”
He fell quiet, resting his forehead against hers as she gently traced the tattoos on his chest. When it seemed he wasn’t going to continue, Mak asked. “What happened to her?”
“For months, she begged me to help her find a way to leave. Finally, I caved. I couldn’t take seeing her so miserable. What the hell did I know about life? I was a stupid fourteen-year-old kid. We hatched a plan, and she ran away. Six months later, authorities found her dead on the street. She’d been working a corner.” His voice caught. “All she’d wanted was to escape, and she ended up dying the same way she lived, in filth. I think I’m so superior because I strip at a club and have never worked a corner. But I’m the same.”
“No. You’re not the same. This conversation alone proves that.” So many unhealed wounds to this man’s psyche. She circled her arms around him and squeezed tight. What could she say? The story was horrifying and taught him lessons about life that drove his thinking and actions for years. So she didn’t bother with fluffy words of sorry and empty sympathies. She held him and pressed her lips to his neck, where his pulse beat strong and steady.
“So yeah,” he continued after clearing his throat. “I fuck in a way that ensures no one will form emotional attachments, but, Christ, Mak, I can’t stop thinking about you and wanting more. I get it if this is all too much for you. And I can’t make long-term promises because I don’t know if I’ll fuck it all up.”
He wouldn’t get the chance to screw anything up. She’d be the one.
“I’m a shitty bet, but I swear to God I’ll give you everything I got.”
He kissed her then, hard and desperate as though showing with his body how strongly he meant his words. Though she loved it, the kiss wasn’t necessary to plead his case. He had her.
As foolish as it was. As hard as the crash would be when she eventually needed to leave, she found it completely impossible to turn away from him. Her heart and mind wanted him as badly as her body craved him.
When he pulled back, lust burned in his gaze, heating her blood to a simmer. As they stared at each other, she swallowed her fear. After years of keeping secrets, she was about to do the one thing she’d forbidden her oldest siblings from ever allowing to happen. Again and again, she’d coached them on keeping the details of their past a secret. Under no circumstances were they to reveal where they’d come from. No matter how much they loved their friends. No matter how hard Lee fell for a girl or Amy a boy. Over and over, she’d made them swear to keep quiet and practice a lie they’d come up with about their parent’s deaths from a car accident.