Page 23 of Our Cracked Pieces
That wasn’t a secret.
Lorcan Cavanaugh’s been after me since we met a year ago in the lobby of one of his corporate offices where Mystic had worked. I had met her for lunch, and Lorcan and Gage had been heading back from a business meeting.
He had sized me up.
I had sized him up.
And the decision had been made to stay far, far, far away from him.
With age and counseling, I’ve come a long way from that eighteen-year-old girl who had been manipulated and abused. Counseling had helped me with the guilt, and age had helped me with the impact those weeks had imprinted on my life.
The only problem?
I had no idea if I was fixed or not, or if I would ever be.
It had taken me two years before I could finally date again. And when I finally had gone on a date, I’d had so many mixed emotions about it, it had been a disaster. While my date had been a great guy, with the realization that I could really like him and see myself getting serious with him, my mind had kept going to the physical portion of the relationship, and the anxiousness surrounding sex had made me a horrible, spacey, air-headed date, and Miguel never asked for a second date.
Determined not to ruin my life by freaking out over sex, I had decided to take control of the situation. I had convinced myself that, as long as I was in control, it would be okay.
And it worked.
Kind of.
In the bedroom, I was boss. I called the shots, and I did the fucking. Foreplay was nonexistent in my life, and I was okay with that. I was down to fuck, and that was all.
But because I’ve never let a man put his fingers inside me, and because I’ve never given a man a blowjob since I was eighteen, and because I never let a man run his hands over my body, I really didn’t know if I was healed. I doubted it, though, since I was too chickenshit to find out. But I had no desire to be in the thick of things, and then freak out because memories were powerful motherfuckers. And Lorcan Cavanaugh was the type of man who would demand control in the bedroom.
I knew it.
“Well, he can’t have me,” I told her. While Mystic and I have shared some serious dark secrets, she didn’t know that I was still unsure of my demons. While Mystic embraced hers, mine were a different monster, altogether.
“Gotta give him points for consistency, though. It’s been a year, and he hasn’t given up.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled under my breath.
Goddamn Lorcan Cavanaugh.
Chapter 18
Lorcan~
Ididn’t bother knocking because I knew Mystic’s brother was in town this week, so there was no chance of her being bent over Gage’s desk in the middle of the day.
Even at eight months pregnant.
I met Gage Evans back during our sophomore year in college. I’d been fucking this girl on the regular and had gone back to her dorm for a quick fuck. But when I had walked in, she’d been naked, on all fours, with Gage fucking her from behind. It was sad to say I hadn’t been surprised, but by then, my opinion of women had already reached its lowest. With the exception of my mother and sister, women hadn’t held a notable spot in my life.
They still didn’t, truth be told.
So, instead of flipping out, I had walked up to the bed-Chelsea wide-eyed, Gage wary-unzipped my pants and had fed her my cock. Gage had continued to go about his business, and we had used her for over three hours before we’d had our fill.
It was the first time I’d ever shared a girl, and my last. My only time had been an experience I had tried and found wasn’t for me. As for Chelsea, I had tossed her aside after that night, never speaking to her again. But Gage and I had become friends after that. Best friends within a few months.
And while my opinion of women came with a legitimate reason, Gage’s had been a result of some serious heartbreak. Losing the only girl who he ever cared about had done a number on him, and he had discarded women like they were tissue. That’s not to say he slept around, just that there was never an ounce of emotion in his hookups beyond basic lust.
Last year, Mystic had started working for me, and it had been the shock of the century to find out my newest employee was the same girl who had broken Gage’s heart. And within a week of finding her again, he had reclaimed her, and they’d been married the following week.
Now, the grumpy bastard was happy as hell with twins on the way.
