Page 72 of Pucks and Likes

I want to trust that he’ll love me even once he knows.

I blink back my tears as we ride in comfortable silence. When we get to our room at the hotel, I want to fall into the bed and not move, but I know sleep will elude me. I sit in the little kitchen nook and slip off my shoes to rub my feet. All the dancing and standing I did weren’t kind to my feet, but I wouldn’t trade tonight for anything.

Alex comes from the bathroom and grabs the chair across from me to sit in front of me. He sets my feet in his lap before rubbing the heel of my left foot. I take him in as he sits before me in a green button-down shirt and fitted khakis that stop at his ankles. His clothes are tight over his shoulders and his thighs, and I’m surprised the chair isn’t groaning from his weight. He’s big, powerful, and oh-so gorgeous.

“You’re too good to me,” I tell him, breathless, as I watch him rub my feet.

He smirks. “Gotta make up for time missed.”

I shake my head. “You don’t.”

“I do,” he says, meeting my gaze. “And my cock will be in your mouth soon enough for the same reason.”

When he winks all sexy and wanton, heat hits me like a puck to the gut. “So, for foot rubs, I gotta give you head?”

He gives me a grin that is both playful and hot. “Not all the time, but after you trapped my cock between those sweet ass cheeks as you danced with me, I need your mouth.”

“Sounds good to me,” I purr, and his eyes darken as his thumb digs into my arches.

He doesn’t look away as he continues to rub his thumb along my feet. “What are you thinking about, mami? I can see the gears working overtime in your eyes. No one upset you, did they?”

How he reads my body so well makes me breathless. My mouth goes dry as I realize what I am about to admit. I bite my lip and fight back the tears and fears that are begging me to run. To not do this. To not open myself up to him. I lick my lips and look down to where I am absent-mindedly rubbing the ring he just put on my finger. My heart is jackhammering in my chest, but I can’t be a fraud anymore. I swallow hard, ignoring my need to run and hide. I owe him this.

“Not at all.”

“Then what’s going on, mami?”

“I told you a bit of my past,” I start, and his thumb stops, his eyes locking on mine. “That I grew up in a cult.” He nods, and my heart jumps into my throat. Shit, I’m doing this. “Well, I never really got into the nitty-gritty of it, but it was pure hell.”

“What do you mean?”

Chills run through my body as I look away.

“Elliot, look at me.”

I meet his gaze without hesitation, the demand in his voice giving me no choice.

“I want your eyes on me, so you know you’re safe and not there anymore.”

God, I love him. My bottom lip quivers as my heart cracks open for him. With my eyes on him, I swallow past the lump forming in my throat and exhale. I don’t recognize my voice. “My older sisters were abused, badly, to protect Clara and me. We didn’t know a lot about what had happened because we were so young, but when we got older, they shared what they went through. They were bitten, raped, and beaten to a pulp, all because they wouldn’t let anyone touch me or Clara. They protected us, sheltered us from the mayhem that was our lives.”

Alex’s thumb pauses as his eyes burn into mine. “I knew I loved your sisters.”

I surprise myself when I smile. I lick my lips and nod. “Austen was the first to leave, then Eliza, because they couldn’t do it any longer. They were being forced into marriages—which wasn’t a marriage, but really a guy owning you.”

His eyes darken. “The fuck?”

“We weren’t people. We were things to be owned.”

Something flashes in his eyes, and then he leans in toward me. “You know when I said I owned you, I didn’t mean it like that, right? You are your own person, but you’re?—”

“Alex, I know,” I say, reaching for his hands and rubbing his knuckles. “You’re nothing like them.”

“Still, why didn’t you tell me or correct me?”

I shrug. “I kinda did, but I was too scared to tell you about this part of me.”

“Don’t be,” he urges. “You’re not your past.”

---