Page 58 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Then, licking my lips, “Second, nothing happened. It wasn’t like that night at the club where I was actually afraid.

” He tenses at the mention of that night, but I keep going, “Or any number of nights when all those men looked at me. I was safe. I promise. I was more worried about you. Of what you might do just because of how you get. You get so crazy, Shepard. You get so insane. You’re always ready to burn everything down when there’s no reason to. When?—”

He takes my hand away then. He grabs my wrist, takes my hand off his mouth without so much as a crease in his brows and rasps, “There’s a reason.”

My heart takes flight in my chest. “Shepard?—”

His eyes are flashing. “You.”

Oh God. He needs to stop. He needs to just…

stop and let me breathe. Because I’m suffocating.

I really am. With all these feelings and emotions and all this fucking love for him.

If he doesn’t stop, I’m going to lose it and won’t be able to tell him that I’m his.

That I don’t care about anything right now. Just him. The rest, I’ll figure it out.

I blink my stinging eyes. “And third, this is the most important part, okay? I can save myself…” I trail off because his hard body grows harder, and I know for sure this is his least favorite part in all this.

But I have to forge on. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but it’s true.

I’m not completely helpless, okay? You have to believe that.

There are some things that I can do for myself.

I can save myself. Did you know I learned how to punch when I was only ten?

I did. I taught myself. And that I slept with a baseball bat under my bed even though I kept my door locked but I didn’t trust it to protect me?

And then I slept on the floor in my sister’s bedroom with the same bat when I was worried about her and her door not being able to keep her safe.

It wasn’t ideal but I did it. So I know how.

Especially in times like these. Where you have so much to lose, okay?

You have. You love soccer. You’re trying to make a comeback after everything.

You’re trying to convince your stupid management to not bench you and so you need to be smart. You need?—"

“You slept with a baseball bat under your bed,” he rasps, his eyes strangely alert.

“What?”

“Who were you trying to protect yourself from?”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit. Did I just tell him that?

Did I really, really just spill the baseball bat secret?

Not that I was actively trying to hide it.

I just… didn’t want it ever to be brought into any conversations with him or his family.

Not to mention, I never told him when he asked me about whether or not his father had ever hurt me. Point blank.

So yeah, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck .

I can’t believe I let it out just like that.

I not only let it out, but he caught it.

Not only has he caught it but he’s coming to a completely different conclusion.

I can see it in his face. I can see the darkening of his expression and a shadow that has fallen over his eyes.

I can feel it in the way he’s holding me now.

All tight and harsh. His thumb mashing the pulse of my wrist. His fingers on my face flexing and vibrating.

“Shepard—”

“Did you…” His chest goes up and down, really slowly and in a way that I can only describe as menacing. “Did you lie to me when I?—”

I shake my head and tell him quickly. “No. No, I d-didn’t.”

“So then,” he says, his voice rough and low, dark, much like every other inch of his face, his body even, “explain to me, very clearly, why you’d need a baseball bat with a locked door to sleep at night, when you said my waste of space father never hurt you.”

Oh God, oh God, oh my God .

I don’t think I’ve ever been this afraid. Not even when I came to his house to tell the truth. Not even when it was all happening in real time, and I was scared his father would break into my room and do bad things to me.

I can’t tell him the truth, can I? But I also can’t lie. I don’t think I can ever lie to him again. But if I tell him the truth, I know he’ll lose it. I know that. He already is losing it and?—”

He squeezes his grip on me. “ Jupiter .”

Fuck. He won’t let this go. There’s no way. So I tighten my thigh around his waist as much as I can, my heel digging into his thigh. I also twist and twist my grip in his jacket. I do everything I can to hold him to me, to keep him close before I give him what he wants.

“Please don’t freak out,” I begin and immediately regret it when his jaw pulses so hard, I hear the clack of his teeth.

“I-I didn’t lie to you when you asked about…

He never hurt me. He always hurt my mom, and whenever I knew he was going to…

I hid. Maybe it was a shitty thing to do.

To leave my mother to it, I don’t know. But I had Snow to protect, so I’d just take her with me and we’d get out of the house or just lock ourselves in the room.

S-so no, I-I didn’t lie. He never laid a hand on me.

Remember that when I tell you the next part. ”

I blow out a breath and close my eyes for a second.

“But there were times when he…looked at me. Strangely. Like, a little too l-long and… Especially when I g-grew up. And then when I turned twelve, he’d…

stop at my door. My b-bedroom door. I don’t know when I noticed it for the first time, but I’d hear the floor creak.

As he walked down the hallway and then, suddenly everything would go quiet, like he’d stopped.

In front of my room. I’d hear his breaths and God, the rustling of his clothes, and I… ”

I shake my head. “I didn’t know what it was.

I could guess, but… So I stole a baseball bat from the school, and I started sleeping with it.

Every night when he came home drunk and I’d hear him putter around the kitchen, I’d hold it close, thinking tonight could be the night, and…

He tried a few times, I think. He’d turn the knob, try to open my door, but maybe he’d be too drunk or whatever, he never tried to break in.

“So when I… I left for St. Mary’s, I told Snow to start locking her door.

Before that I’d sleep with her, in her room, but never told her why.

But when I left, I had to. I told her to protect herself.

I gave her my bat. But I want you to know he never did anything to her.

Never looked at her differently or in a strange way, thank God .

It was only ever me. It was also another one of the reasons I never came to you guys before.

Because I thought… what if. What if he did the same to Callie?

She’s my age and I could never let that happen to her. I could?—”

I have to swallow down my words then.

Because in a flash, he’s out of my puny hold.

He’s extricated himself from the tangled web of our limbs and stepped back.

Not only that, he’s already turned around and is now striding away from me before I can catch my breath.

Before I can even begin to comprehend what happened.

But then I don’t really have to think too hard about it, do I?

I know what happened. I know what he’s doing. I even know where he’s going.

I can guess.

So I take off after him. It’s the testament to his tall body and lunging steps, his determination to get where he’s going, that I actually have to run quite a distance across the lawn to catch up to him.

Although I do more than catch up, I crash into his body from the back because I know there’s no hope for me to stop him otherwise.

Not that I’m really able to tackle him to the ground or anything.

All I could do was run into him really fast, hurt my shoulder and make him stumble a couple of steps forward.

But at least he’s slowed down some. Which means I can quickly round him and before he can stop me, I climb his body.

I literally climb it and wind my thighs around his slim hips and my arms around his neck.

And I don’t know whether to thank God or curse at Him that the night is bright enough for me to see his face, but I can read every single emotion on it.

Every single thing he’s feeling right now, I can see and sense.

Rage, fury, pain, disbelief, violence. Murder .

His need for blood. I can see it all and throw myself at him.

I hug him. Tightly. With all my might.

And chant no . I keep chanting it. No, no, no, no, nononono .

Until that’s the only thing I hear and I hope he does too.

More than that, I hope he listens and he stops.

But of course, that would be too easy because his arms—that had come to wrap themselves around my body—flex and squeeze, and he says in the softest voice possible. “Let go of me.”

I hug him tighter and shake my head. “No. No, no, no. I won’t. I won’t. Because you’re not going. You’re not going anywhere .”

His chest shudders. “Let me go.”

“No, I won’t let you go. I’ll never ever let you go.

” To emphasize, I climb even higher on his body, hold him even tighter.

“You’re not going to see your father. That’s where you’re going, aren’t you?

” His body shudders again, confirming my suspicion.

“You’re going to do something to him. I know it.

I know. But I won’t let you do anything. I won’t let you?—”

His hand creeps up and fists my hair, his voice still low and soft but now with a hint of gravel. “Let me the fuck go, Jupiter.”