Crashed(book three)(166)

He sniffles back a sob, his eyes blinking rapidly, his expression pained, and I lean forward and press a soft kiss to his lips—a touch of physicality to reassure the both of us. I press a kiss to his nose and then rest my forehead against his, trying to take a moment to absorb all of this.

“Thank you for trusting enough to share with me,” I whisper to him, my words feathering over his lips. And he doesn’t respond, but I don’t need him to. We sit like this, forehead to forehead, accepting and comforting each other and the boundaries that have been crossed.

I don’t expect him to share any more, so when he starts to speak, I’m startled. “Growing up I didn’t know how to deal with it all, how to cope.” The absolute shame in his voice washes over me, my mind reeling from the loneliness he must have endured as a teenager. I rub my thumb back and forth over his cheek so that he knows I’m here, knows I’m listening. He sighs softly, his breath heating my lips as he finishes his confession.

“I tried quickly to prove that I wasn’t damned to Hell even though he did those things to me. I ran through the gamut of girls in high school to prove to myself otherwise. It made me feel good—to be wanted and desired by females—because it took that fear away … but then it also became my way of coping … my mechanism. Pleasure to bury the pain.”

I whisper it the same time he does. The line he said to me in the Florida hotel room that stuck with me, ate at me, because I wanted to understand why he felt that way. And I get it now. I get the sleeping around. The f*ck ’em and chuck ’em. All of them a way to prove to himself that he was not scarred by his past. A way to place a temporary Band-Aid over the open wounds that never healed.

I squeeze my eyes shut, my mind and heart aching for this man, when his voice interrupts the silence.

“I don’t remember everything, but I remember that he used to come up to me from behind. That’s why …” his voice so soft it trails off, answering a question I asked the night of the charity gala.

“Okay,” I tell him so he knows I hear him, knows I understand why he was robbed of the ability to accept such an innocent touch.

“The superheroes,” he continues, his stark honesty stealing my breath. “Even as a kid, I had to hold on to something to try and escape the pain, the shame, the fear, so I would call to them to try and cope. To have some kind of hope to hold on to.”

I taste the salt on my lips. I assume it’s from my own tears but I can’t be sure because I can’t tell where he ends and I begin. And we don’t move, remaining forehead to forehead, and I wonder if it’s easier for him to sit like this—eyes shut, hearts pounding, souls reaching—to get it all out. So he doesn’t have to see the despair, pain, and compassion in my eyes. But even though his eyes are closed I can still feel the chains that have bound his soul for so long begin to break free. I can feel his walls starting to crumble. I can feel hope take flight out of this place in the dark. Just him and me in a place where he can now chase his dreams without his past closing in on him

I angle my head down and press a kiss to his lips. I feel them tremble beneath mine, my self-assured man stripped bare and open. He finally eases his head back, our foreheads no longer touching, but now I can look into his eyes and I can see a clarity that’s never been there before. And a small place within me sighs that he just might be able to find some peace now, just might be able to lay the demons to rest.

I smile solemnly at him as he draws in a ragged breath and reaches his hands out and urges me up from my knees and onto his lap, where he wraps his arms around me. I sit there cradled, comforted, and loved by a man capable of so much. I hope he’s finally able to see it and accept it. A man who swears he doesn’t know how to love and yet that’s exactly what he’s giving me right now—love—in the midst of being in the darkest of despairs. I press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, his stubble tickling my sensitive lips.