Page 201 of Those Who Are Bound

Becks shook his head. “We don’t do this. Not anymore.” He jerked his head in the direction of the event center. “And when that man asks if I fucked you tonight, I want to be honest with him.”

Elliott’s heart seized. “He’s not going to ask.” She hoped there was never that conversation, that there wasn’t an obvious undertone.

He gave her a hard look. “He’s going to ask.” Removing his suit jacket, he laid it across the counter before he walked to the refrigerator. While perusing the contents, he continued, “Now, answer my question, or do I need to go down there and ask him myself?”

“No!” she blurted out. So much for getting him on a plane without raising his curiosity about Jonah. Why couldn’t Becks have been an accountant? Or a truck driver? Why did he have to be a detective? His gaze snapped over to her, and she wrinkled her nose again. “I mean… He’s a preacher.”

Becks’s eyebrows raised, waiting. The light from the refrigerator made him look ominous.

Elliott bit her bottom lip as she debated, but there was no way Becks was going to let this go. So she confessed by way of saying meekly, “He’s a good person.”

“Fuck, kid.” He slammed the door shut and turned to face her fully, regret and concern etched on his face. “You’re a good person, too.”

Her leg bounced beneath her as she shook her head rapidly, denying his words as tears gathered. “You know what I am. You know what I’ve done. I just now tried to, without even thinking…”

“Stop.” His tone was authoritative.

Elliott looked away.

“That’sthe man? The one who put a smile in your voice a couple of months ago? The one you told me you broke it off with? The one I thought was six feet under?”

She stuck to her guns. “He’s apastor.”

“So what? I’m Catholic. Means what, exactly?”

“He’s good, on a broad scale—community, helping others—and I want to…” She gave him a look. “You know what I want to do to him. But Idon’twant to do it, and I know I will.”

“Nobody is a hundred percent good. And you arenot bad. If you don’t want to hurt this guy, you won’t.”

She tucked in her lips and dropped her head. She picked at one of her nails for a minute before she asked quietly, “Do you think Iwantedto hurt you, Becks?”

Now he was quiet.

Elliott risked a glance up. He looked every bit his age at that moment.

Finally, he answered, “No. No, I don’t think you wanted to hurt me. I don’t think you wanted to hurt anyone. I think you wanted to feel good and didn’t stop to think what it cost others to give you what you needed. You were young and hedonistic.” He didn’t stop even though she flinched at the word. “You were spoiled and overindulgent. And I assisted in that. We all did, in different ways. You were never told no. I should have told you no.”

“Would it have changed anything? Would I be different?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But, this idea that you’re a bad person—”

Her lower lip trembled. “Those men.”

“Those men were equally to blame. Who was the last one? Mitch? That doctor?”

“He hates me now. I can’t ever go to that hospital.”

“What did you do to him, exactly?”

Elliott turned away. Becks knew the story. Becks knew that she’d enticed Mitch, excited him, and then scared him. Like she had the others. She’d had the misfortune of running into him once afterward. He’d sneered and glared at her like she was scum; tainted; filth. A monster.

“He wanted to prove he was a badass dom or some ridiculous shit, and you scared the piss out of him. Took him to his literal knees, flipped the script on him, and he liked being the bitch. That was him, Ellie, not you. He was weak because he couldn’t admit who he really is.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought it was funny, exploiting their fears. Until…”

Becks shook his head. “Your brother—”

“No! Stop, I can’t talk about him.” She took a deep breath. “Please, that’s too much. I can’t… You, here, and him… I can’t go there.”

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