Page 42 of Dirty Love

“I’m special?” I ask it lightly, but the way my heart beat races, I want it to be true.

His thumb presses into my skin. “Yes, you are.”

I think he’s earned a secret. “I ran away from home on my fifteenth birthday. Don’t be sorry, either. It wasn’t a home to mourn the loss of.”

He doesn’t blink.

“That’s how I ended up in Seattle. Seemed like a decent place for a teenager to winter on the streets.”

Still no reaction. That’s good. If that broke him, I’d never get through the rest of it.

I take a deep breath. “It didn’t take Grant long to find me. And he changed my life.”

“But you hate him.”

“Yes.”

“What did he do you?”

I can’t say it. Instead, I take his hand and press it to my belly. Under my fingers, his muscles tighten. His entire body goes tense, coiling tight, and I start to shake.

“You were fifteen?”

I nod.

He wants to ask more questions, but I can’t. And as the tears start to fall, silent, wet slides of regret and anguish, he cups my face in his hands and kisses each of them away, until his face is just as wet as mine.

“I’ll take that secret to my grave,” he whispers against my mouth. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

“I have everything to fear. From you, because of you…” My breath hitches, but I get it under control. “Mostly from myself. I have a lot to fear about my own impulses and desires.”

He holds my face, not saying anything for an agonizingly long time, then he brushes his fingers through my hair. “I have no doubt that if you need to, you’ll be able to walk away to protect yourself. And I want you to. Never put me before you, you understand that? I don’t want that. I want you safe, no matter what.”

“I need to tell you…the Grant thing.”

“Another time.”

“The marriage is real.”

“Do I look like a guy who gives a fuck about technicalities?”

“I…”

“Are you out of protests?”

I don’t know what to say to that.

He holds me in silence, maybe until he knows I’m not going to say anything else. “Once a month I'll find you. I’ll try to limit the amount of contact in between.”

“That thing on my phone?”

“It’s not traceable. Nobody will know I’m reaching out to you.”

“You can’t.”

“I can. Nobody will know.”

“That's not possible.”

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