Page 135 of Wicked Dreams

“I-I-I can’t remember what I did to make her hate me,” I hiccup. “Why did she leave me?”

I know the answer. She loved drugs more than her daughter. She was declared unfit to parent—that’s what Ms. McCaw told me. I don’t remember much of the hearing with the judge, except that Mom never showed.

Dad was already gone at that point.

There was no one left to take care of me… so into the foster system I went.

Caleb rubs my back. “It’s okay.”

It isn’t. It won’t be until I find the answers I need.

I don’t know which questions to ask, though. I don’t know where to begin to look for Amber Wolfe.

“Will you help me?”

After Dad was arrested, I didn’t see Caleb for seven years. He wouldn’t know where my mother is, and he sure as hell wouldn’tcare.

“No.”

His answer stings, but I get it.

Time to change the subject. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you I’d see you tonight.”

His face is blurry through my unshed tears. The dots click into place, though. His cryptic words in class, the whispered conversation with Robert. My foster dad needing to check with Lenora…

“Did you get them the reservation?”

He brushes away some of the tears. “I might’ve been planning it for us, but you’re still grounded. So… yeah, I offered it up to get them out of the house.”

“You’re an ass,” I mutter. “And arrogant.”

“And ruthless,” he adds, kissing my cheek.

“And wicked.” I turn my head slightly, catching his lips on mine.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll beg you to make me forget about it.” I kiss him again, harder.

Losing my virginity to Caleb has been confusing to say the least. My attraction to him in general makes little sense. My body likes him—almost too much—and I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what to make ofhim. They say that you forge connections when you lose that piece of yourself.

I didn’t believe it. I still don’t, to a certain extent. Caleb and I have been connected by an invisible string forever. The sex just made it better.Or worse. Any chance of escaping him has gone out the window, because now I don’t want to run.

He said only he was allowed to be cruel to me.

The sick part is, I’m looking forward to it.

His fingers on the waistband of my shorts brings me back to the present. I raise my hips for him to tug the fabric down.

I unbutton his pants, freeing his erection. He pauses undressing me only long enough to toss a condom on my stomach. I tear it open and roll it on him carefully, half remembering past health class lessons. He groans into my neck.

My shirt is gone, and he stares down at me for a second before dropping more weight on me. I feel him at my entrance as he kisses my collarbone.

“This is going to hurt,” he warns me. He rocks his hips forward, pushing into me.

I didn’t realize how sore I was from Monday until right this instant.

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