Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(60)
“Well. I’m trying to decide if that’s better or worse than I’d originally assumed, which was that it was all one-sided on his part. You asked me what I was doing earlier, and the fact is I was trying to warn him off. I thought he might try pushing you into something you didn’t want.”
I rolled to my back, turning my head to look at him. “Why would you think that?”
“Bad experiences.” He shrugged. “Let’s just say I didn’t have a great track record with married men by the time I was done with art school. Bad experiences beyond a few creeps trawling the club scene while their wives were out of town, and the instructor who tried to sell me a spot in a show, with the currency being favors performed on my knees.”
“Ah.” I shook my head. “No. I don’t think he’s like that.”
He nodded against the back of my shoulder. “Okay. Were you careful?”
“No.” I flinched, shuddering.
His tongue clicked against his teeth. “Okay, here’s the thing about married men, Topher: If they’ll cheat once, they’ll cheat again, and something about being in the closet that deep just makes them desperate. More prone to taking risks.”
“I’m pretty sure this was his first time. He felt just as awful about it as I did, and he was just as scared. I really hope he’s not that good a liar. But yeah, it was dumb. Really, really, incredibly dumb. I’ll get tested next month.”
He kissed the point of my shoulder. “I think being twenty-one is all about the dumb. At least it was for me. Try to be smarter, but don’t beat yourself up too hard. It’s done. Move on.”
I nodded, taking his hand as it rested on my stomach and playing with it, sliding my fingers in and out between his. “I guess I just still don’t get why it happened. I mean sure, he’s hot, but I find a lot of guys hot and I don’t end up f*cking them. We were friendly and I could talk to him and then suddenly everything just went insane. Like we both just lost our minds.”
“What did you talk to him about?”
“My issues, mostly.” I snorted softly. “He was a good listener. You know, the first day I met Robin, he said something about me not letting people in easily, but it’s really not true. I’m more likely to dump my baggage in someone’s lap than try to hide it away, because I apparently can’t resist a pity party. And, wow, from the very first conversation I ever had with Brendan, I just unloaded. He made it easy. He kept asking for more. I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with him being a psychology professor. I’m used to talking to shrinks.”
His breath ruffled my hair. “Well, dumping your baggage on someone isn’t the same as letting them in. Some people use candor as a shield. Best defense is a good offense, right? You blurt it all out and then you wait for the inevitable revulsion when the other person just walks away from it. The ones you really want to keep around are the ones you hide the bad stuff from until you feel safe.”
I swallowed against a knot in my throat. “I guess that’s true. But it was different with him. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about all of it, even though I didn’t want to turn him off.”
“Did it feel like talking to a shrink? That sort of thing?”
I shook my head. “No. Freaky as this sounds, I think maybe it’s because he’s a father—and according to Mo, a pretty good one. I needed someone like him to agree that the things that happened to me weren’t okay. That it wasn’t me who was always wrong.”
“That makes a lot of sense.”
“But of course, I can’t be around someone like that without getting my signals crossed. All my interactions with parental-type authority figures have been sexualized one way or the other, ever since I was a little kid. Either they were being inappropriate with me, or they had . . . they were, like, prurient. You know? Like they spent way too much time thinking about the dirty things I could get up to, and then they’d accuse me of doing it even when I hadn’t, and it was just creepy, like they were getting off on making up fantasies about me.”
He went a little still when I mentioned the kid part, but I so didn’t want to tell that particular story now. And I didn’t really feel it was necessary. I think Jace already knew. Not the specifics, but he knew that people had done awful things to me. I didn’t need to say it.
“Maybe I’m just not capable of being with an adult—f*ck, I say that like I’m not an adult, but you know what I mean? Someone that much older, with that sort of authority or vibe or whatever—without getting what is and isn’t appropriate mixed up in my head. It has to be about sex because I don’t know how else to interact with someone in that role.”
“I think I know what you mean.” His hand closed firmly around mine. “It’s a f*cking good thing I’m not any older, or I’d start to feel very, very wrong about this.”
I dipped my head, kissing him softly. “No. I think you’re just right. Old enough to be a little wiser and less confused than I am just now, but not so old that you scramble my radar.”
He pulled me down so that I rested with my head on his shoulder, tucked under his chin. I could hear his heartbeat and feel the light stroking of his fingertips against my scalp. The warmth of his arms around me was amazing. Again, the only word I could come up with for it was protected. Fuck, that word was terrifying. I didn’t try to throw him off and get away this time, but it took an effort not to.