Secrets We Hunt (One Night #2)(18)

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I hear her groan. I look around trying to see where the hell she’s hiding. I find her sitting on a stone ledge in the shadow of the hotel. “Can’t you take a fucking hint?” she exclaims, sniffling and wiping viciously at her eyes. Anger rushes through my body. She ran from me…again.

I storm over to her and take her by the throat, looking in her wet and puffy eyes. I’m close enough that I can see the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks even in the darkness of the alley. Her eyes go wide for a moment before her face crumples again into tears that rack her body.

“We really need to stop meeting like this, Little Doe,” I say, squeezing her throat until her cries stop.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN





Sitting on the stone wall, her hips are at the same level as my own. I use my free hand to push her dress up and out of the way, running my fingers across her bare pussy.

“Forgot your panties?” I ask her, lessening my grip around her neck so that she can answer.

“Couldn’t find them,” she gasps out.

“Why did you run from me again?” I ask her, teasing her well-abused clit with the pad of my finger. Tears stream down her face as she tries to calm her breathing. She leans into my hand and grips my forearm. Wetness pools around my finger as I continue to tease her.

“I can’t tell you,” she whispers.

“Fucking tell me,” I growl at her, sliding a finger inside of her and curling to hit that spot that makes her whimper.

“You’ll hate me!” she says through her tears. “And I couldn’t stand knowing that you’ll hate me, that you’ll look at me differently, Wes. Just let me go!”

She shoves me, and I let her, giving her room to breathe.

“Fuck,” she swears, pushing her dress back down and wiping at her face again. “How do you manage to do that every time you touch me? You get the wires in my brain all crossed to where I can’t tell if I want to kiss you or fucking slap you.”

“Don’t change the subject. I’ve been chasing after you, trying to hunt down these fucking secrets you’re keeping from me, and you just keep dodging me. There is nothing you could say to me that would make me hate you or look at you any differently. I’ve known you since we were eight. I’ve seen you pick your nose, and I’ve bought you tampons. I beat up that asshole that tried to put his hands up your cheer skirt in high school. I held your hair back senior year when you drank too much vodka, and I also remember helping you change pants after you peed yourself from vomiting so hard.”

She groans at the memory.

“Trust me, Little Doe,” I murmur, taking her face in my hands and rubbing my thumbs across her cheeks. “There is absolutely nothing that could keep me away from you.”

She looks up at me and pushes her hands under my shirt to rest on my hips. Her fingers make little circles on my skin while she looks at me, trying to work up the courage to say whatever it is she needs to say. The pain that is clearly written all over her face is like a knife to the gut. I want to take it away. I’d feel every single molecule of it if it would make her stop looking at me like that.

“He raped me,” she finally whispers.

My body goes cold.

“Who?” I ask, even though I already know. But I need her to say it. I need to hear it. Her face crumples again, but she takes a steadying breath and answers me.

“Your uncle. That night,” she chokes out. “He pulled me aside, cornered me, and raped me. After it was done, he told me that you would never want me because of it. He told me I was ruined, that I was trash, the scum of the fucking Earth because I gave in to him like that.” Her voice cracks, and it shatters my fucking soul.

“And what was I going to do or say? I was eighteen, still practically a child, and he was an adult. Of course I gave up and let him do it. I let him do it,” she cries at me, coughing on her sobs. “He said you would never want me after that, Wes. And I…I believed him. He wanted me gone, out of your life so that he could keep you.”

I walk away from her. I can’t look at her right now, or I’m afraid I’ll scare her away. I can feel my body run hot and cold at the same time. I can barely breathe, and all I can see is red. Red for that piece of trash that dared lay a finger on her. Red for Zo? who had to endure that and then go through the last eight years of her life thinking I wouldn’t want her because of it.

How could I have let it happen? She told me he creeped her out. She told me she didn’t want to be around him alone. She dropped so many blatant fucking hints that went right over my head.

Guilt consumes me, drowns me until I can’t see past it.

“I’m so sorry, Wesley,” she says, trying to hold back her tears. Her voice brings me out of my turbulent thoughts and back to solid ground.

“What in the world would you be sorry for?” I ask her, walking back over to her and taking her small form in my arms. She falls into me, her cries shaking her body as she lets out eight years of trauma. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I tell her, squeezing her tighter and lifting her off the wall.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks, lifting her head off my shoulder.

“I’m taking you to your room.”

“Let me walk, then! There are still people working the front desk—it’s embarrassing. I’m a mess.”