Page 21

TWENTY-ONE

jack

“No.” Carter blocks me with his massive body, his hand on my chest. “You don’t get to shut me out again. Not after what just happened between us.”

My body hums under the pads of his fingers, tiny sparks of electricity shocking my flushed skin.

His hand slides up to the back of my neck, his lips practically grazing mine.

“You destroyed me when you left that night at the hotel. I did something I’ve never done before, something I never even thought to do with another guy. Scared of what I felt, what it meant. And you fucking kicked the shit out of me when you walked away. For the second time.”

With a hitched breath, I twist my head away from his.

“You’re the one who could destroy me ,” I mutter.

“If I let you get too close. Because you don’t just wake up one day and decide to be gay, Carter. Okay? You might be curious, sure, but to all of a sudden decide you’re gonna give up pussy because you’re confused? That shit doesn’t end well. Ever.”

I sneak a glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

“You know I’m right.” I swallow hard.

“And if it came to that… ”

“It wouldn’t,” he says, cupping my chin and turning my head so I’m forced to look at him.

“It might.” I stare at him for a long minute.

“I don’t need you to save me, remember?”

“Maybe I need you to save me,” he says, running a hand through my hair.

“I know I didn’t handle things well back at hockey camp. I was confused and panicked, everything you said I was. And I never got a chance to tell you I was sorry before you left. But there’s always been something between us. I tried to deny it but it turns out I was just lying to myself. I know you’ve felt it, too.”

I did.

I do. But dammit, how can I trust that it won’t blow up in my face again?

How can I believe that he won’t hurt me when everyone in my life already has?

I haven’t been able to trust anyone because I always feel that if they don’t want something from me, they…

I grit my teeth.

They’ll want to end me.

And no matter what Carter thinks he wants, when push comes to shove and things go sideways, because coming out always has repercussions, what will he do?

How will he react? He saw the fucking mob scene that attacked me in Ohio.

How would he handle that shit?

How would his family feel?

His former hockey legend of a father?

With a tight chest, my mind stumbles back into my toxic past.

I know all too well how badly family members can react to that kind of announcement.

And Carter…I don’t think he’d be able to deal.

Not matter what he thinks he wants.

“What I felt doesn’t matter. This doesn’t matter.”

“You’re a fucking liar. Don’t you dare try to play this off like it means nothing.” His voice rumbles low and deep against my ear and he palms my cock again.

It’s amazing that my dick hardens almost immediately for him when I just came a few minutes ago.

Twice.

“You’re gonna tell me that this means nothing?” he murmurs.

“You’re a hot guy whose hand is on my dick. Of course it’s gonna get hard,” I groan, jerking my hips against his hand.

“It’s not only because of those reasons.” He gives my cock a good squeeze that makes my ass clench and my balls tighten.

“You think you can read me,” I gasp.

“But you don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’ve dealt with. What still haunts me now.

“I want to know all of it.

” He dips his head and sucks on the side of my neck, my cock throbbing at the sensation coursing through me.

“But I need you to trust me. Just like I trusted you our first time.”

Our first time.

Fuck, after the stunt I pulled, I never thought there’d be another time after that.

I figured channeling my inner asshole and turning my back on him would make him forget about me and whatever crazy, twisted fantasies that had kept me lying awake at night would finally be extinguished forever.

But it only made my feelings for him flare hotter in my blood.

So after starring in that shit show at the hotel tonight and having my darkest secrets on the brink of exposure, I craved someone who could give me safety and security against everything out of my control.

That someone was Carter.

It’s always been Carter.

I cover his hand to stop him even though it feels amazing .

Because what I’m about to tell him is anything but.

His brows furrow, his hands moving to my hips as he waits for me to speak.

“I didn’t have the perfect family life like you did. Never had the doting parents, brothers, sisters. It was just me.”

No truer words have been spoken either because after my mother took off, my father wanted nothing to do with me.

I took care of myself, cooked for myself when I could scrape enough together to buy food, did my own laundry.

I had no one. If I got scared in the middle of the night, there was nobody to hold me tight and tell me everything was gonna be all right.

There was nobody to protect me, nobody to make sure I didn’t choke to death on my meager meals, nobody to drive me to school, to give a shit if I got hit by a bus while walking.

“I was just a kid when my mom left,” I continue.

“She got tired of my dad’s abuse. He’d get drunk or high and beat the shit out of her. I was young, but I can still remember the screaming and crying. Every time she threatened to go to the cops or leave him, he’d threaten to kill my grandmother, so she stayed for a little while.”

Memories pop between my ears like bullets.

Bullets…

“Jack, I’m so sorry.”

“That fuckhead Kyle Donovan made sure everyone knew all about my dirty laundry. But even he didn’t have the whole truth.” My voice cracks and I scrape a hand down the front of my face because no.

I can’t go there. Going any deeper would open a can of slimy fucking worms, and I’m not ready to unleash those.

The truth is already hanging by a thread, and all it would take is one snip to ruin me.

“My dad is an evil bastard. An alcoholic junkie who used me as a punching bag for most of my childhood. I…I needed to get away from there. From him. I couldn’t go back after junior hockey camp. I had no home. Once my grandmother died, my mother left and never looked back once. She never cared that she left her kid with that monster. All she cared about was saving her own ass once the threat to her mother was gone. She didn’t care about her own son. I have no idea where she is now, if she’s even alive.”

Carter pulls me close and runs a hand up and down my back, making my skin tingle under his gentle touch.

“So those scars on your chest and back…” His voice trails off and I nod, angry tears stinging my eyelids.

“It was him. He burned me with cigarette butts while I slept, sometimes when I was awake. If I didn’t follow one of his orders, he’d lash me with his belt, throw his beer bottles at me. Other stuff…” I squeeze my eyes shut, his voice echoing in the dark recesses of my mind.

“Get out of bed, you little prick. Make me breakfast,” he slurs, dangling a beer bottle over my head.

He tilts the head so the cold liquid drizzles down the side of my face and onto my blanket.

“I’m tired. I have to get up for school in the morning,” I say, my lips trembling because the heavy wind outside had knocked down a power line and I’d been home alone in the dark for most of the night.

Scared shitless. It was only when my eyes creaked open that I saw the power had come back on.

I also saw my father’s gun tucked into his jeans.

I want so badly to plug his ass full of bullets.

One day I will.

One day…

“Get up,” he bellows again.

He flings the blanket off of me and smushes the tip of his cigarette against my arm.

It sears my skin, the stench of charred flesh in my nose.

I scream and push him off of me.

“I hate you,” I yell.

“I hate you so much.”

He flashes a nasty smirk at me and leans close, then smashes the bottom of the beer bottle against my nightstand.

“You wanna go, Jackie boy?” He waves the jagged glass in front of my face.

“I won’t hurt your pretty face. But the rest of you ain’t gonna be so lucky if you don’t get that ass up now.”

“I never let anyone know how bad things got. Yeah, there was talk in town, but the couple of times I said something to teachers or coaches, he came after me.” I take in a deep breath.

“I had to get away from him. I didn’t know what else to do. I only had one chance. I didn’t have enough money to get out on my own. And nobody wanted to mess with my father.”

I drop my head onto Carter’s shoulder and wrap my arms around his neck.

He knows I’m not telling him the whole truth, would never understand what I have to protect and why.

But he doesn’t ask.

He just holds me, giving me the security I’ve craved for as long as I can remember.

Before now, I’ve only relied on myself for it.

“Not even Sam knows about my past,” I say.

“It’s just always been safer for me to act like it never happened.”

And pray the truth never comes out.

Because once it does, my entire life will unravel.