Page 93 of Finding Hope

I want to punch him in his damn throat, yet he only pulls me against his chest and laughs.

“You need to relax.” Bringing his mouth back to the exact spots he abused last night, he ruins any progress I might have made when he pulls my flesh between his teeth and nibbles.

“Relax?” I elbow him in the stomach and attempt to push him back. “How am I supposed to relax?” I snap my hand up and point at my smudged makeup. “I look like a raccoon.” Then I point at my neck. “Withhickeys! I have students downstairs that are just about to become supremely confused, and you have family that’s going to look at me all…”

His eyes dance. Totally at fucking ease. “They’re going to look at you how?”

“Allknowingand shit!”

“What do they know?”

I glare at his reflection. “Youknowwhat they know, and you know they know that I know it!”

His smug lips twitch. “What do I know, beautiful?”

I spin in his arms and poke his chest. “You know!”

He laughs. I attempt to dodge his hold and move away – I’m irrationally angry, anger borne from humiliation – but he throws his arms around my shoulders and pulls me into his chest.

“Stop, Bambie. You need to take a breath. They’ll be nice, I promise.”

I stare into his eyes, blue and sparkling as they gaze down into mine. “You promise?”

“I promise.” He drops a kiss on my forehead. “They’ll be nice… to you.”

My eyes narrow. “Tell it to me straight before I stab you.”

“They’ll probably tease me. They’ll bring it up. But they won’t be mean to you.”

“But, Jack…” My whining annoys me. “I have students downstairs.” I point toward his bedroom door. “I haveparentsof students downstairs. How am I ever supposed to have a parent teacher meeting with them again? How could Ieversend the girls to detention again?”

His lips twitch. “Over our kitchen table?”

I punch him in the chest. “You’re not taking this seriously enough!”

“You’re taking this seriously enough for both of us,” he laughs. “Relax, Bambie. This isn’t a big deal.”

I know that he’s lying. And I know that he knows that he’s lying.

Stupid liar.

“Seriously, stop.” Groaning, he takes my face in his calloused hands. Hands that played me like the strings on a guitar last night. His soft lips peck the tip of my nose. “I hate to bring it up again, because it’s my ass that I’m showing. But Bambie, you survived what was possibly the worst walk of shame… Of. All. Time. You accused me of ass fucking my brothers. There’s nothing that could be worse than that. There is no down from there, babe, there’s only up.”

I shake my head and groan. “You just made this so much worse. You didn’t help at all.”

Using his fingers to lift my chin, he draws my eyes back to his. I haven’t noticed his sneaky dimple for a while, but it flashes today. It’salmostspecial enough to forgive him on the spot.

“How did I make it worse?”

But of course, I don’t. “I forgot I said that to them.”

Laughing, he smacks a hard kiss over my lips. “It’s fine, Bambie. Let’s go. You only have to do this once, then it’s all over.”

Dragging me from his room and toward the stairs, I feel like a teenager that’s been caught in her boyfriend’s bedroom. We’re in the middle of our twenties. I have a real-life grown-up job, and I haven’t had a curfew in a long time. But itfeelsso much more awkward; these people, this gauntlet we’re walking into, and they aren’t even his parents!

They’re his thirty-something-year-old siblings.

That should make it easier, but somehow, it feels worse!

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