Page 62 of Puck Lust

“You’re gonna tell me that this means nothing?” he murmurs.

“You’re a hot guy whose hand is on my dick. Of course it’s gonna get hard,” I groan, jerking my hips against his hand.

“It’s not only because of those reasons.” He gives my cock a good squeeze that makes my ass clench and my balls tighten.

“You think you can read me,” I gasp. “But you don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’ve dealt with. What still haunts me now.

“I want to know all of it.” He dips his head and sucks on the side of my neck, my cock throbbing at the sensation coursing through me. “But I need you to trust me. Just like I trusted you our first time.”

Our first time.

Fuck, after the stunt I pulled, I never thought there’d be another time after that. I figured channeling my inner asshole and turning my back on him would make him forget about me and whatever crazy, twisted fantasies that had kept me lying awake at night would finally be extinguished forever.

But it only made my feelings for him flare hotter in my blood.

So after starring in that shit show at the hotel tonight and having my darkest secrets on the brink of exposure, I craved someone who could give me safety and security against everything out of my control.

That someone was Carter.

It’s always been Carter.

I cover his hand to stop him even though it feels amazing.

Because what I’m about to tell him is anything but.

His brows furrow, his hands moving to my hips as he waits for me to speak.

“I didn’t have the perfect family life like you did. Never had the doting parents, brothers, sisters. It was just me.”

No truer words have been spoken either because after my mother took off, my father wanted nothing to do with me. I took care of myself, cooked for myself when I could scrape enough together to buy food, did my own laundry.

I had no one. If I got scared in the middle of the night, there was nobody to hold me tight and tell me everything was gonna be all right. There was nobody to protect me, nobody to make sure I didn’t choke to death on my meager meals, nobody to drive me to school, to give a shit if I got hit by a bus while walking.

“I was just a kid when my mom left,” I continue. “She got tired of my dad’s abuse. He’d get drunk or high and beat the shit out of her. I was young, but I can still remember the screaming and crying. Every time she threatened to go to the cops or leave him, he’d threaten to kill my grandmother, so she stayed for a little while.”

Memories pop between my ears like bullets.

Bullets…

“Jack, I’m so sorry.”

“That fuckhead Kyle Donovan made sure everyone knew all about my dirty laundry. But even he didn’t have the whole truth.” My voice cracks and I scrape a hand down the front of my face because no.

I can’t go there. Going any deeper would open a can of slimy fucking worms, and I’m not ready to unleash those. The truth is already hanging by a thread, and all it would take is one snip to ruin me.

“My dad is an evil bastard. An alcoholic junkie who usedme as a punching bag for most of my childhood. I…I needed to get away from there. From him. I couldn’t go back after junior hockey camp. I had no home. Once my grandmother died, my mother left and never looked back once. She never cared that she left her kid with that monster. All she cared about was saving her own ass once the threat to her mother was gone. She didn’t care about her own son. I have no idea where she is now, if she’s even alive.”

Carter pulls me close and runs a hand up and down my back, making my skin tingle under his gentle touch.

“So those scars on your chest and back…” His voice trails off and I nod, angry tears stinging my eyelids.

“It was him. He burned me with cigarette butts while I slept, sometimes when I was awake. If I didn’t follow one of his orders, he’d lash me with his belt, throw his beer bottles at me. Other stuff…” I squeeze my eyes shut, his voice echoing in the dark recesses of my mind.

“Get out of bed, you little prick. Make me breakfast,” he slurs, dangling a beer bottle over my head. He tilts the head so the cold liquid drizzles down the side of my face and onto my blanket.

“I’m tired. I have to get up for school in the morning,” I say, my lips trembling because the heavy wind outside had knocked down a power line and I’d been home alone in the dark for most of the night. Scared shitless. It was only when my eyes creaked open that I saw the power had come back on.

I also saw my father’s gun tucked into his jeans.

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