Page 22 of Guarded By the SEAL
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
He should turn around and go back to his spot on the floor, pull that threadbare excuse for a blanket over himself and forget all about her. But he didn’t want to. He wanted to know just what tormented her in the night, and he sure as hell didn’t want to examine exactly why it mattered so acutely. “It might make you feel better.”
“It might make me feel worse.”
“I doubt it.”
“What are you, a nightmare expert? Some kind of therapist?”
He nudged the side of her thigh with his own. “C’mon, what’s it gonna hurt?”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
He considered how tired he was, how much he wanted to sleep, and realized he wanted to help her more than he wanted a pillow beneath his head. “No.”
She sighed heavily. “It’s stupid, really.” She was quiet so long, he wasn’t sure if she’d changed her mind, fallen asleep, or was gathering her courage. “Marilyn had this boyfriend, Travis. He lasted longer than the others. It must have been a couple of years.”
Wyatt’s hands clenched into fists, his short nails digging into his palms as his imagination suggested a litany of offenses Travis may have committed. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, not like that. He never did anything sexual. He just liked to mess with me to get me upset. It’s stupid that I even remember it now.”
“How did he mess with you?”
“He just said things. Things that were designed to unnerve me, to make him feel powerful and me feel small, you know?”
“How old were you?”
“Ten or eleven.” She clucked her tongue. “It was nothing, really.”
“Did he do this in front of your mom?”
“Marilyn?” She rolled her eyes. “Even when she was there, she wasn’t there. She was high or drunk or passed out on the floor. I honestly couldn’t tell you if she knew he did it or not.”
He worked to control his breathing—in for a count of two, out for a count of three—but it wasn’t working. He was angrier than he’d been in a long-ass time, and the object of his anger existed only in Teslyn’s memory.
She moved to roll over, the blanket beneath him making it hard for her to do so. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “I told you it’s stupid.”
He reached for her shoulder, gently turning her back. “It’s not stupid at all.” His hand stayed where it was long after it was necessary, his thumb absently rubbing back and forth on her skin. “You were just a kid. You should have felt safe in your own home, and he took that from you. How often did he do this?”
She shrugged her shoulder and he let his hand fall away. What the hell was he doing, touching her that way?
“All the time,” she said quietly.
“So, you were in fifth or sixth grade, your mom was basically invisible, and you had a grown man talking to you in a threatening manner, making you feel unsafe.”
“Yes.”
His eyes had adjusted to the dim light of the room, and he could see the telltale glimmer of a tear as it slid from her eye. In a moment of insanity, he wished he could kiss it away.
I’m overtired as fuck, with terrible judgement.
He needed sleep, not to be sharing secrets with Teslyn in the dark, and certainly not kissing her tears away. She was a grown woman who’d had a bad dream, for Pete’s sake, not his girlfriend, just his responsibility. He leaned farther away from her. “He had no right to do that to you. Anyone in that situation would have lost their shit, especially a kid.”
He stood, congratulating himself for not crossing any lines he’d regret crossing in the morning. His mind flashed to the feel of her skin beneath his thumb, warm and inviting.
So maybe I crossed one line.
