Chapter 5
“Before I tell you about Dr. Evans, I guess I should start at the beginning.”
Kara nodded, not wanting to interrupt the flow of his words with any questions or comments. She hadn’t meant to confess her love, but she hadn’t been able to help herself, hadn’t been able to hold back the words. And she didn’t regret it. She was weary from trying to hide it, and no man deserved to be loved more than Simon.
“My father died a month before the incident. Overdose. Drugs and alcohol. He was foolish enough to steal drugs from one of the biggest drug dealers on the West Coast, a guy he ran errands for or distributed drugs for in return for enough drugs and booze to feed his own habit. He rarely got paid in cash, and even if he did, he didn’t use it to feed his family or his wife.” His voice was low, seething with distain for the man who had fathered him. “Mom tried her best, but she had dropped out of high school and couldn’t get anything but minimum-wage jobs. She did whatever she could to feed us and keep dear old dad’s business away from our shitty apartment and away from me and Sam. Mostly, she kept us out of trouble, making us see that we could be something more, something better.” His voice cracked, his adoration for his mother evident.
Everything that Helen had told her made sense now. Helen blamed herself for not being able to give her boys a better childhood. Kara frowned as she remembered the sorrow in Helen’s eyes when she had talked about her boys, their crappy childhood. Didn’t Helen realize that she had given her boys something to cling to in their childhood, something they desperately needed to survive intact? Helen had given Simon and Sam love...and hope.
Simon’s voice strengthened as he continued. “Rose was my childhood friend, really my only friend other than Sam. She grew up in the apartment next to ours. She was a year older than me.” He shifted uncomfortably, his foot bouncing in the water as though he were nervous. “We were as close as friends can be until my hormones started to rage and I started to see her as a female. I cared about her a lot and I thought she cared about me.”
“So you did have a girlfriend when you were a teenager?” She wasn’t sure where he was going with his explanation, but she sensed that it was important to his history.
“Yes and no. I guess. We kissed, we held hands. I had horny, teenage-boy wet dreams about her every night. I wanted to get laid for the first time and I wasn’t exactly an attractive teenager. I was quiet and skinny, not much to look at. Clumsy as hell. I read a lot. Mom made sure Sam and I had books from the library or reading programs. But Rose seemed to like me even though I was a gawky, ugly kid.”
Kara’s heart contracted, trying to picture a young, awkward teenage Simon. She was willing to bet her nursing career that he had been adorable.
“She started changing when she turned seventeen. She dropped out of school, started hanging with my father’s crowd, wouldn’t talk to me anymore or was so distant that she acted like I was nobody.”
She squeezed his hands. “That must have hurt.”
“It did.” He didn’t bother to deny it. “I knew she was using, stoned out of her mind most of the time. I begged her to let me help her, but she wouldn’t listen. She just laughed in my face, saying that there was nothing I could do because I was as poor as she was. And she was right, damn it! But I wanted to help her get clean. And stop working the streets.”
“She became a prostitute?” Oh God, poor Simon.
She couldn’t see him, but she felt his shoulders lift in a shrug. “She had to pay for her habit somehow and I know she gave some of the money to her mom to help her younger brother.”
“You didn’t give up, did you?” Kara didn’t need an answer. She already knew. Simon was stubborn and tenacious, his rescuer tendencies still alive and well. It wasn’t in his nature to stop trying.
“No. I wanted to believe that the Rose I knew was still inside her, waiting to come out again.” He snorted. “It didn’t matter how many times she tried to avoid me or told me fuck off, I still tried. I was pretty naive, I guess.”
No, you weren’t. You were good, even though life had dealt you a crappy beginning. You were a dreamer who wanted to believe that everyone could be saved. You must have been as guileless, honest, and direct as you are now. You just didn’t hide it as well then.
“Having hope doesn’t make you naive, Simon.”
He laughed, but it was self-deprecating. “I was gullible. I didn’t see her for about a month after my father died. Then one night, she showed up at our apartment, dressed in a short sexy skirt and a friendly smile. For a teenage male virgin...that was all it took for me. Mom was working and Sam had already gone to Florida to start a construction job there. I was getting ready to graduate from high school and Sam had made enough money working construction to bring us to Florida to join him.”
“You were graduating from high school at the age of sixteen?”
“I skipped a grade. Twice. School was never difficult for me,” he answered in a sheepish voice, like the fact that he was smart embarrassed him.
Why was she not surprised that he was a boy genius too? “So, what happened after she came in?”
“She came on to me hot and heavy. I responded like a sixteen-year-old who had never gotten laid. She had me in my bedroom within minutes. She was experienced and I let her take the lead. She opened my fly and had my dick out of my pants and a condom on me before I really knew what was happening.” He laughed, but there was no humor in the hollow sound. “Not that I would have objected. I had a beautiful woman above me, ready to fuck me senseless. I was a teenager in complete ecstasy.”
Oh. Dear. God.
Kara bit back a horrified gasp. Her suspicions had to be wrong. It couldn’t have happened that way.
“She had the knife hidden in her bra.” His voice trembled.
She wasn’t wrong, and the nausea started to rise in her throat.
“So there I was, getting my first fuck, drowning in erotic bliss, never once thinking that there was something strange about the whole situation. She grabbed the knife and started stabbing the moment I started to come. It took me by surprise. She had stabbed me so many times before I realized what was happening that I didn’t have a chance to defend myself.” His chest was heaving, his voice strangled and raw.
Kara’s whole body quivering with emotion, she turned in his arms, straddled his thighs and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Why?” she asked, her question coming in a short sob. “Why would she do that?” Burying her face in his neck, she let her tears flow unchecked down her face. All she could think about was the vulnerable teenage Simon, lying in a pool of blood, dying, just because he was a hormonal, typical young man.
Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he answered in a graveled voice, “Revenge. My father died before he could be punished for stealing from a powerful boss in an organized and huge cartel. The organization was sending a message, letting people know what happens to a person or their family if they try to steal from them. They couldn’t let my father’s bad deed go unpunished. He died before they could send that message. I was just a substitute.”
“But why Rose?”
“The boss knew we had been friends since childhood. Her loyalty was being tested. She was pretty deeply involved in the organization. They threatened to kill her mother and brother if she didn’t kill me.” Surprisingly, there was no bitterness in his voice.
Shaken to the depths of her soul, she choked out, “Is she in jail?”
“She’s dead.” His voice was flat. “She fled as soon as I passed out from blood loss, obviously convinced that I was a goner. She went straight to an alley, took a lethal amount of drugs and slit her wrists with the same knife she used to stab me. They found a suicide note and her confession in her pocket. She begged forgiveness from both her mother and mine, saying that she had to protect her family. She never knew that I survived. Mom came home a few minutes later and found me. If she hadn’t, I would have been dead.”
Unable to contain her horror, she sobbed into Simon’s neck, crying for all of the pain that he had suffered, both emotionally and physically. How did one survive a betrayal like that? Especially by a friend, a woman he had adored. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why?” he asked, sounding perplexed. “You didn’t stab me.” He rubbed his hand up and down her back. “Don’t cry. I don’t like it.” His voice was demanding, but he rested his head against hers, his touch on her back gentle and comforting.
A sad smile crossed her lips as she tried to rein in her emotions. His comment was so...Simon. He had no idea why she was crying for him, why she hurt for him. Being loved by anyone other than his family was completely alien to him. “Tell me about your injuries?”
“I had stab wounds. Lots of them.” His voice held a slightly teasing note. He paused and asked in a more hesitant, gruff voice, “Are you going to cry again if I tell you?”
Oh, good Lord. He’s telling me about the most traumatic event of his life and he’s worried about whether or not it will make me cry?
“I’ll try to contain myself. Tell me.”
“I was in the hospital for a while. Lucky for me, Rose was a lousy murderer. She managed to miss most of my vital organs and some of the wounds were shallow. They had to do surgery and repair a few organs, but I lived through it. As soon as I was well enough, Sam moved Mom and me to Tampa.” He breathed a long, masculine sigh.
“Were you scared?” she whispered against his neck, still visualizing a young, frightened, injured Simon. Her arms tightened around his shoulders, wishing she could have been there to comfort him.
“Honestly, I barely remember any of it.” He shook his head slightly. “Sam said Mom was a total wreck. The only thing I remember was being ashamed when I was finally coherent. And sad because Rose was dead.”
Her head jerked back abruptly in shock. Searching his eyes, confused, she asked, “Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I was duped because I was horny. I was thinking with the head below my waist instead of the one above it. Rose coming on to me wasn’t logical. It didn’t make any sense. I should have been suspicious. Christ! All she had said to me in months was to go to hell. Should have known something wasn’t right. But I didn’t think about anything but getting off.” His face was dark and tortured. “I was pissed at myself. I put my mom and Sam through hell because I was stupid. I knew better. I grew up in the neighborhood. I sure as hell knew how to watch my own back.”
Her palm lifted to his face, stroking over his jaw, realizing that he had been a man in a boy’s body when he was injured, expecting himself to make rational decisions even when his hormones were raging. Didn’t he realize, although he may have had the intelligence of an older man, his body had still been young, his maturity still that of a sixteen-year-old boy? “Simon...you were sixteen. Still a boy. You may have been a boy genius, but you were still a teenager.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t grow up to be exactly...uh...normal.” He caught her hand that was roaming over the stubble on his face and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her palm gently and entwined their fingers, resting their conjoined hands over his heart.
“No, you didn’t. You grew up to be extraordinary. You have reason not to trust easily. What happened with Dr. Evans?” Sure, he needed to have control, but given the circumstances surrounding the traumatic event, she was willing to bet that anyone would have their demons from that experience. She knew she would.
“He made me talk. I hated it, but I went every week to make my mom feel better. After a while, it got easier. He helped me through my feelings about Rose’s death and about my father. But I never told him what really happened. I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anyone. Everyone assumed that Rose came in through an unlocked door and stabbed me while I was sleeping...and I just let them continue to think that. It seemed easier.” His body tensed. “It was a coward’s way out.”
“But there must have been signs at the scene. The condom and-”
“Apparently, Rose had some sort of feelings for me, some guilt. There was no condom and my dick was in my pants. No one ever assumed that it was anything but an attack on me while I was asleep. A revenge hit against my father. You’re the only person who knows. I couldn’t even tell Sam.” His voice trailed off in a husky whisper.
Her heart ached for him, her soul needing to somehow comfort him. Pulling her hand from his, she turned his face to hers, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Listen to me. You were attacked when you were young and vulnerable. You have no reason to feel guilty or ashamed. Not one bit of it was your fault. I understand why you have trust issues. I understand why you panicked the other night.” She saw doubt in his eyes and it pissed her off. “But know this...you survived and grew into a gorgeous, sexy, brilliant, successful man in spite of the fact that you got a raw deal when you were younger. You’re the most incredible man I’ve ever known. Do you understand me!?” Her statement was fierce and her eyes were shooting fire. Damn it, he needed to get it through his thick head that he was someone special.
His eyes grew warmer and his lips twitched. “Yeah. I got it. Can we go back to the sexy part?”
She rolled her eyes. Trust Simon to focus in on only the sex part of her statement.
“Is that the only part you heard?” she replied, exasperated.
“No. But it was the most interesting part.” He grinned at her unashamedly.
Frustrated, she scooped up a handful of water and dropped it on his head. “I’m trying to explain something to you here.”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into his body, creating a ripple in the tub that had water lapping against their skin in a gentle caress. Eyes heated and intense, he speared her with a look that spoke of possession, desire that ran much deeper than lust. “Do you want to know what I understand?”
She shivered as his arms slid tightly around her body, anchoring her against him. Unable to speak, she nodded.
His voice low and raspy, he answered, “I understand that I have to be the luckiest bastard on the planet because you love me, you accept me. Hell, I think you almost understand me-which is a fucking miracle because sometimes I don’t even understand myself. I don’t really know how to romance you like I should, but it isn’t because I don’t want to. I just don’t know how. I understand that before I met you I was living in a very small world, and somehow you dragged me into the light, made me look around and actually see things that I never saw before. I understand that you make me a better man.” He snaked a hand around her neck and planted a fierce, possessive kiss on her lips. Pulling away abruptly, he cupped her chin, his eyes molten and fierce. “Is that enough understanding for you?”
Breathless, she peered at him with her heart in her eyes. Maybe he hadn’t repeated exactly what she had been trying to convey, but it was a start. He was learning to be loved. Burying her face against his shoulder, she murmured against his skin, “It’s enough. For now.”
“I need you, Kara. Don’t leave me again.” His voice hoarse, he rubbed his face against her hair.
He hadn’t told her that he loved her, but he had bared his soul, shared his secrets, made incredible leaps in sharing his emotions. And he had done it for her. So yeah, for now, it was more than enough. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Damn right you’re not!” he growled.
She smiled, because even as he spoke the demanding words, he was rocking her in his arms, holding her like a tender lover. He was wrong about not knowing how to romance her. He showed her how much he cared in so many little ways that were mind-boggling, seductive, and addictive. It was like a missing piece of her soul had finally found her and clicked into place, making her feel complete.
“Did you love her?” She knew she should drop the subject, but she wanted to know.
“Who?”
“Rose? Did you love her?”
“No.” His low voice answered quickly and without hesitation. “I cared about her as a friend and I had a gigantic crush on her. But I didn’t love her. I didn’t want her to die. The sad part of the whole thing is that she died for nothing. A few days after she killed herself, the whole organization was brought down by the authorities. The boss and everyone associated with the cartel are going to rot in jail.”
She could hear the sincerity, the acceptance of the whole situation in his voice. He wasn’t angry, wasn’t bitter. “Good therapist?”
“Yeah. Dr. Evans was the best. We still have dinner occasionally. I think he’s still trying to figure me out.” He laughed with genuine humor.
She smirked against his shoulder. “You’re a fascinating subject.”
“Are you saying that I’m odd?” he growled against her neck.
“Hmmm...I’m not sure.” She slid away from him and stood, hating to leave the circle of his arms, but dying for something to drink. She’d been in the steamy room for quite some time and she was parched. Unable to resist looking back at him as she climbed the steps, her hungry eyes roamed his muscular body and handsome face. “I think I need to study you a bit more before I come to any conclusions.”
He came to his feet in one graceful motion, muscles flexing, a wicked grin on his face. “Sweetheart, if you keep flashing that sexy body at me, I’m going to be doing my own studying.” His grin widened and his eyes grew dark as he prowled after her, his big body cutting through the water easily. “And I examine and test my data very thoroughly.”
She scooped up a towel from a pile next to the tub and scrambled out the bathroom door, Simon hot on her trail. Laughing as he caught her around the waist before she could make it out the bedroom door, she squealed, “No. I’m thirsty.”
As he pulled her back against his wet, solid chest, she wondered if she really needed water all that badly. God, he felt good. Melting back against him, she could feel his hard, insistent arousal against her ass.
“Are you thirsty?” His voice changed, instantly concerned. “Did you eat?” He took the towel from her hands and started to wipe her body gently, drying her back and turning her around to blot the moisture from her breasts and belly.
She bit her lip as she peeked up at his face, his expression anxious and slightly agitated. “I’m not that hungry.” Her appetite was increasing for something other than food.
By the time he was satisfied that she was completely dry, she was certain she was going to die of lust. The man was definitely thorough.
“You need hydration and food.” He grunted as he tossed her his black silk robe and quickly dried his own body, going to his closet to rummage for clothing. He pulled on a similar garment in navy blue, putting it on quickly, barely taking the time to yank the tie closed.
She nearly whimpered as he covered that glorious, masculine body. She slipped on the black robe reluctantly, her thirst being overridden by the heat between her thighs. All she wanted at the moment was to get horizontal with Simon. “Seriously, I’m not that hungry.”
He grasped her hand and tugged, pulling her along behind him. “You’ll eat.” He stopped, piercing her with a dark, warning stare. “I plan to fuck you until you beg for mercy later.”
Her nipples hardened to pebbles and the smoldering heat between her thighs went up in flames. His heated expression made her shiver with longing, every inch of her skin tingling.
I’ll be begging. But not for mercy.
With a frustrated sigh, she let him pull her toward the kitchen. She knew that stubborn, determined look of his. He was determined to satisfy her needs, give her whatever she needed. One casual mention of being thirsty and Simon was a man on a mission, pushing his own needs and wants aside, taking care of her first.
And he wondered why she loved him?
Her heart turned over as he squeezed her hand, leading her with focused determination toward food and water. The man was a tantalizing mixture of sizzling male hormones, intensity, tenderness, vulnerability, and compassion. The perfect male wrapped up in a bossy, handsome, irresistible package.
Why did she love him? Shouldn’t the question be...how could she not love him?
She smiled as she admitted to herself that she had never stood a chance against falling madly, completely, and totally in love with this man. Something had drawn her to him from the moment they met, something elemental and primal. Maybe she had been afraid to recognize it for what it was, but it had always been there. Simon was like a force of nature-dangerous, yet compelling because of its fierce, wild, and raw power.
She remembered her mom once saying that true love was not for the faint of heart, but the rewards were worth the risk. Kara had been young, not even a teenager, and she hadn’t understood the meaning of her mom’s statement.
Now, with Simon, the meaning of those words was crystal-clear and she understood exactly what her mom had meant. And she had finally found the man who was well worth the risk.
Sending a silent thank-you to her mother for the words that it had taken her many years to understand, she allowed Simon to guide her out of the hallway and into the kitchen, a silly grin on her face.