Effortless (Thoughtless, #2)(47)

Exhaling, he shook his head. “Why? It’s ancient history. I’m not that guy anymore, Kiera. I’m not gonna be that guy again. Can’t we just ignore it?”

Cupping his cheek, I shook my head. “We can’t ignore things and have a solid relationship. And…it’s not ancient, Kellan. That girl today proves that it’s still relevant. We’re going to run into these girls over and over and I need…” I exhaled in a rush, “I just need to know what I’m up against, Kellan.”

Dropping his head he muttered, “You’re not up against anything.” I didn’t say anything and he peeked up at me, hope in his eyes that I’d drop this. When I didn’t, when I just kept silently sitting and waiting for him, my heart in my throat, he sighed and nodded. “I don’t know how many, Kiera…I’m sorry.”

Looking around the room, he leaned over and rested his elbows on his knees. “I suppose if you do the math…” He looked down at his hands.

“I’ve been having sex for about a decade, with two or three different girls a week,” he peeked up at me, guilt all over his face, “on average,” he looked back down at his hands, “so that’s….” I held my breath, already having calculated the answer. He looked up at me and blinked after he did the math. “Crap…that’s over fifteen hundred girls.” He looked back down to his hands and muttered, “That can’t be right…”





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I sighed, knowing it was. Even if he only had sex twice a week with a different girl each time, that was over one hundred girls a year. Since he’d started so young, and he had almost ten years of that sort of behavior under his belt…well, that was almost a thousand girls. And that was assuming a low average. I had a feeling some years had been much higher than two or three a week. Sometimes he’d had two or three a day.

He looked a little ill as he sat on his couch, considering that. He clearly never had before. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I really am a whore.” Actually feeling bad for him, I put a hand on his knee. “Well, I can see why you don’t remember them all,” I whispered.

He looked up at me, horrified. “I’m so sorry, Kiera. I didn’t realize…” He shook his head and I shook mine too. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty, Kellan, I just…we should talk about this openly, honestly.” Sighing, he leaned back against the couch. Nodding, he splayed his fingers out to me. “What do you want to know?”

“I know you don’t remember all of their names, but do you remember their faces? Would you recognize them all if we ran into them again?” I cringed, thinking of this afternoon.

He bit his lip, thinking. “Maybe girls from the last few years, but before that…no, I’m sorry, the faces blur together and you know I didn’t always ask…” he looked down,” their names.”

I squeezed my hand on his knee, and asked the one question that I really needed answered, the one that seemed the most relevant…and the one that terrified me a little. “Were you safe…with all of them?” My heart thudded in my chest. True, STDs and other communicable diseases were high up on my list of concerns, but the one thing that scared me the most was the idea of some woman out there having had his child after a one night fling with him. It happened all the time. It was so plausible. It terrified me to no end that some woman knocking on his door would also come with a toddler…with midnight blue eyes.





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His eyes immediately flashed up to mine. “Yes,” he whispered, his voice sounding completely sure.

Sighing, I slumped against the couch. “Kellan, you don’t have to lie to make me feel better…just be honest.”

His hand came out to cup my cheek. “I am. Even from the first, the very first, we used condoms. I always carried some with me after that day. I didn’t want…” he sighed and shook his head, “I didn’t want another…me…to happen to some girl.”

I stared at him blankly, amazed that the circumstances of his own conception had sacred him straight, so to speak, even at the tender age of twelve. Without thinking about it, I murmured, “How can you be sure…if you don’t remember them all?”

He shook his head. “Because it was my rule, and I never broke it. It was the one thing I…was good about.”

Frowning, I pushed his hand away from my face. “You weren’t with me. You never even thought about it with me.” There was a little heat in my tone as I thought about all of our skin-on-skin moments. He looked down, his eyes flicking back and forth. “That’s because…” he peeked up at me, “it was you.” I furrowed my brow, not understanding. He sighed, bringing his fingers back to my cheek. “I wanted you…so much…and in a way I’d never wanted any girl.” He rested his forehead against mine, exhaling lightly. “I loved you…even that first time. I didn’t want anything between us. I wanted…” Pulling back, he looked away. Grabbing his cheek, I made him look at me. “You wanted what?”

Looking guilty again, he shrugged. “I wanted…to own you. I wanted a part of me in you.” He cringed. “I wanted to mark you, make you mine.” Sighing, he shook his head. “Because I knew you really weren’t…but it made me feel…closer to you, to think that way.” 133