Page 35 of Just My Type (The Boston Hearts #3)

Hannah smiles. “I mean, I’m already your accidental wife, so I guess I might as well be yours for real.”

“Fuck yeah, you are.” I take her face in my hands and kiss her, soft and slow and full of promise, smiling against her lips when she sighs against me.

When she pulls back, she takes my hands again. “But you might not want that after I finish.”

“Hannah. There is nothing you could tell me that would make me want you any less. Every single word out of your mouth just makes me want you more. I swear it. Tell me the rest, baby. Your story is safe with me.”

Hannah’s eyes go shiny, but her lips curve in a small smile. “I know. I’ve never told anyone this before. Not even my sisters. It feels right that you know first.”

I love you .

The words bubble up in my chest, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from blurting them out. Instead, I squeeze her hand as she keeps talking .

“After the night at the bar, it was more of the same for a long time. He never hurt me physically, but it was like the more well known I got, the more opportunities that came my way, the worse he got. Almost like my success made him feel inferior or something.”

“Weak ass manchild,” I mutter, and Hannah laughs. The sound is sunshine.

“Accurate. My writing made it easier for me to ignore his behavior. I would retreat into my books, and when I wasn’t writing, I was reading, and it was almost like I was in another world.

That made it easier to deal with his shit.

I shouldn’t have stayed. It was a mistake to stay, but I did.

And if he hadn’t done the thing that finally woke me up, I might still be there with him.

I might never have found the courage to leave.

I guess maybe part of me didn’t think there was anything better out there for me.

That I would never find what Hallie has with Ben or what Jo has with Jordan.

That maybe I was destined to write about it, but never really, truly experience it for myself. ”

I want to tell her that she did find it. That it’s right here. That what’s between us is enormous and important and unbreakable. But when she looks at me with emotion swirling in her eyes, I think maybe—just maybe—she already knows.

“Thank you for listening to me. For letting me tell you a long meandering story to build myself up to what I really need to tell you.”

God, this woman. She really has no idea. “Gorgeous, if you wanted to read me the phone book I would listen. I love hearing the sound of your voice. Take as much time as you need. I’m not going anywhere. Ever, Han.”

She scoots closer to me and presses her lips to mine, wrapping her arms around my neck. “I’m crazy about you, it turns out.”

I feel my smile spread. “Well now that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. ”

She kisses me again and then pulls back. “I’m ready to tell you the rest now.”

I nod, taking her hands back in mine, feeling them shake slightly with her nerves. “I’m listening.”

“For the last couple months before I came to Boston, we never had sex. Brett was shitty in bed anyway, so it’s not like I was missing anything, and we were barely speaking at that point.

We were just two people existing in the same space, and I was already struggling to write anything at all, so that was where all my focus was.

One night, he went out with some friends and came back drunk.

It was late, but I was up reading when he came in and tried to start something.

I’d had a really bad writing night, and I was frustrated and anxious about it, and it was easier to just go along with Brett than try to explain to him that I wasn’t in the mood. So, I did. He…”

She breaks off, breath hitching, and I pull her closer to me, wrapping an arm around her and kissing her head, even as my own heart pounds. “You’re okay. You’re safe. Take it slow.”

She lays a head on my shoulder, taking a deep breath and holding onto my hand for dear life. “He just wanted to get off. He didn’t care about me at all, but that was nothing new, so I thought, whatever, you know? But then he was inside me and it felt so wrong.”

Hannah’s voice breaks, and I feel a tear fall onto my shoulder. I loop an arm around her waist and tug her around until she’s straddling me, her head laying on my chest. “I’ve got you,” I say, kissing the top of her head.

The breath she lets out sounds like relief.

“I wasn’t ready for him and it kind of hurt, and I just wanted him off of me.

Out of me. I told him to stop, and he didn’t.

I thought maybe he didn’t hear me, so I told him again.

That time I knew he heard me because he laughed.

He laughed at me and kept going. He grabbed my wrists and trapped them above my head and told me to stop being such a frigid bitch.

That I was his. He was holding me so tightly, and he wouldn’t let go. ”

Hannah’s tears are falling fast, her voice ragged and broken as she tries to get the words out, and I have never felt so helpless in my entire life.

I want to fly to Pittsburgh right now and beat the shit out of Brett.

I want to force Hannah to press charges against that asshole and get him thrown behind bars for the rest of his miserable life.

Most of all, I want to protect Hannah and keep her safe and promise her that nothing bad will ever happen to her again.

But I can’t do any of that right now. All I can do in this moment is hold her and stroke her hair and her back and be here to bear witness to her pain while she tells me about the worst moment of her life.

It doesn’t feel like nearly enough.

“It hurt,” she continues, voice small. “His hands kept getting tighter and tighter around my wrists, and it hurt so badly. I couldn’t move.

Between his hands and his body on mine, I couldn’t get away, and I felt trapped.

Then I started to panic. I don’t know how I managed it because I couldn’t breathe, but somehow I got a leg between his and kneed him in the balls.

I guess it was hard enough to hurt because he let go of my hands and I was able to shove him off me, and I ran out of our bedroom and locked myself in my office.

I stayed there all night, until I heard Brett leave for work in the morning.

Then I packed a bag and got in my car and drove here, to Boston.

I don’t even remember the drive. All I remember is pulling up at your mom’s house and walking in to book club.

Then you and your brothers showed up and you saw the bruises and, yeah, you know the rest. He never stopped texting me to come back, but I ignored all of them.

It took me a long time to work up the nerve to finally contact him to break up officially.

That’s what I went back to Pittsburgh to do last spring, but I lost the nerve to talk to him face to face and ended up texting him that we were over.

Not that there was anything left to end, but I felt like I had to make it official.

Then I went to the house when I knew he’d be at work and got the rest of my stuff.

I stayed with Hallie for a while, and then I came back here.

” Hannah takes another deep breath, her face turning from devastated to angry in a flash.

“God,” she spits out. “I hate that I did that. I hate that I couldn’t face him, almost as much as I hate what he did.

What he took from me. I’ve spent so much time feeling sorry for myself, and feeling broken, that I haven’t been able to feel mad and fuck, Noah.

I’m so mad. I’m so mad I don’t even know what I’m mad about, and I don’t have anywhere to put it, so I just walk around with barely concealed rage all the time, and I hate it.

And I hate him. This. All of it. Fuck. Anyway, that’s it. The whole sordid tale.”

Hannah takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. I can practically see the physical effort she makes to bury that rage, yet again.

“Hannah,” I say, my voice soft as I absorb the enormity of her story.

“I am so, so sorry that happened to you. It shouldn’t have happened to you, and you are entitled to every single bit of your anger.

To every single feeling you have. I’m angry for you.

I’m angry with you. Thank you for telling me everything.

I know it took a lot of courage for you to share this with me, and I promise I’ll keep your truth safe. ”