I swallowed. “How are you going to tell them?” I couldn’t think of an easy way to break the news to his parents. Would we tell them we were in love? No way would we tell them we’d had sex.

“Something really smooth,” he said, scooting me closer until my head was just below his chin. I dangled my leg around his waist. “We’ll totally ease them into it.”

I didn’t know how he planned to “ease” them into it, but Jesse was a smart guy. If he said he could ease them in, I’d believe him.

“Hopefully your dad and mom won’t mind you dating a menace to society. Otherwise we’re in trouble.” I was mainly teasing, but when Jesse didn’t reply right away, I knew he’d taken it differently.

“Why did you get into all of the drugs and drinking . . . and stuff, Rowen?” Jesse obviously didn’t like to mention the guys from my past any more than I did.

“A lot of reasons.”

Jesse exhaled slowly. “Why do you answer all my questions so vaguely?”

It was my turn to exhale slowly. Fine. Since we were apparently laying everything out on the table—girlfriends sleeping with good friends, confessions of love, the taking and losing of virginity, et cetera—I supposed I might as well dive right into the bottomless pit of my past.

“I’ve always been a little different, Jesse,” I started, cuddling closer, “a little one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other. I grew up without knowing my dad. I don’t think Mom even knows who my real father is, and the only parent I had was gone more than half the year traveling for work. I was pawned off on neighbors, acquaintances, and sometimes the random old friend passing through town.” I studied the ceiling and focused on Jesse’s body against mine. I was safe. I was loved. I wasn’t that scared little girl anymore. “I really started getting out of control when I hit thirteen.”

Jesse’s knuckles skimmed up and down my back in slow circles. “Why?”

He asked all of the questions I didn’t want him to ask. All of the questions I didn’t even ask myself anymore.

I bit my lip. I could do it. “My mom was dating this one guy.” I couldn’t say his name. I hadn’t said it since and I’d never say it again. “She dated a bunch of losers, but this guy really brought new meaning to the word. I’d find him staring at me when he didn’t think I’d notice. He’d go out of his way to be close to me . . . he’d look for innocent ways to . . .” I swallowed, closed my eyes, and forced myself on, “to touch me. I didn’t think much about it. I just wrote him off as a Grade A Creeper and tried to avoid him. My mom was gone for work one week, and she’d responsibly left me under the care and supervision of said Grade A Creeper.” I felt Jesse’s body stiffen beneath me. Or was that mine? “I’d just gotten home from school and headed to my bedroom. I didn’t even know he was back from work yet. I was in the middle of changing, and he just opened the door and walked inside the room like he owned the place. I yelled at him to get out. He just smiled.”

Jesse’s hand stopped moving up and down my back.

“He said that because he took care of my mom, I needed to take care of him. He . . . he . . .” I swallowed, but getting the words out was harder and harder. It was the first time I’d told the story since the day after it had happened. “He said my mom would never have to know. He said it would be our secret. And he said if I ever told anyone, he’d suffocate me and my mom when we were asleep.”

Jesse’s arms quivered around me. Then again, maybe that’s just the way they felt since I was shaking, too.

“He came at me. I tried to run. He was faster. He grabbed me and I tried to fight, but he was a big guy and I was even smaller than I am now.” When I closed my eyes, the entire scene played through my head, so instead, I opened them and focused on Jesse. I let him ground me. I let his eyes remind me I was safe. “He threw me on the floor, and I knew what was going to happen next. I knew no one was coming to save me. I knew I was alone.”

Jesse’s chest was rising and falling hard again. I hated taking him down the darkest road in my life. I hated that he had to know why I was such a goddamned mess. But I loved how not even a little bit did his hold on me loosen. He held me to him like he was trying to protect me from my own past.

“I looked around for something I could use as a weapon, and that’s when I realized I had all the weapon I needed. You might have seen me in a certain pair of old black combat boots?” Everyone at Willow Springs had seen me in those a good dozen times. “They also happen to be steel-toed and, when kicked right into a man’s balls, they can do some damage. I got out of the house as fast as I could and ran to a friend’s house. I stayed there until mom got home the next day.” The ball was back in my throat. I knew I was one of the lucky ones, my would-be r**ist never finished what he’d started, but my ending was still devastating. In fact, the ending was the most heart breaking part of the story.

“I told Mom what had happened the moment I saw her. I told her everything.” I paused because the tears had started. I felt one drop fall onto Jesse’s neck. His arms flexed around me. “And you know what she did after I finished telling my story?” Jesse shook his head against mine. “She grounded me for lying to her and said if I ever told her the same kind of lie again, she’d send me off to some all girls’ reform school.” My mom and I had never been close—I’d always known I was the mistake she wished she’d never made—but after that day, whatever frail bond we had was forever broken. “Her a**hole boyfriend called later that night to break up with her. He thought it was for the best since I’d ‘thrown myself at him’ while she’d been away. She slapped me across the face, called me a little slut, and grounded me again.”

If there was a way to curl deeper into Jesse’s arms, I was trying.

“After that, I turned into the walking train-wreck that landed me here in the first place.”

As hard as it was, retelling the story was easier than I’d expected. I guessed that was because of who I was telling, but as Jesse’s silence continued, I wondered if giving him the “whole” story had been such a good idea.

“Rowen,” he said at last. His voice was low and vibrated just enough that I knew he was trying to keep some emotions in check. “I love you.”

I nodded my head beneath his chin.

“If there was any way for me to go back in time and protect you from that piece of shit, I would do it like that.” He snapped his fingers. “If there was any way for me to go back and kick the shit out of him so he’d never even think about touching another girl again, I would.”

The anger he restrained almost made me shiver. Other than that night with Garth when he’d come to get me, I hadn’t heard Jesse sound like that.

“But since I can’t travel back in time, I’m going to promise you this now. I will protect you. I will keep you safe.” His mouth dropped to my forehead and he kissed it. “You are safe.”

I was safe.

I. Was. Safe.

Those were three words I’d needed to hear from my mom five years ago. Jesse’s arms wrapped around me the way I’d needed her arms to wrap around me then. He comforted me exactly the way I’d needed comforting as a terrified thirteen-year-old. He was healing the wound that had been opened so long ago, I’d almost forgotten it was still there. I’d distracted myself with things that numbed my mind and body just enough I could continue to forget.

I didn’t need those things anymore. I’d never need them again. I wasn’t healed—I wasn’t naive enough to think some words and hugs would heal that kind of a wound—but I’d been heard. Finally, someone had heard me and believed me.

I could take my first step forward. Finally.

“Thank you for listening,” I said. “And thank you for what you just said. I’m sorry my past is such a ginormous cluster-fuck.”

Jesse’s head shook.

“Please don’t say you don’t care about what I’ve done or what’s been done to me,” I said before he could. “Please don’t say that.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.” His lips brushed over my forehead. “I do care about your past, Rowen. It’s made you who you are today, and that’s the girl I’m in love with.”

“Okay. Did you come with some sort of manual that goes over the exact right thing to say to a girl?” I lifted my head so I could look at his face. After a moment, he mirrored my smile. “Because I swear to God, you say the exact perfect thing at the right time.”

“I don’t need a manual to tell the truth.” He kissed the top of my head and pulled the blankets around me. “We’d better get to sleep. Or else you’re going to fall asleep in the blueberry pancake batter in the morning.”

Jesse was back. The anger was gone, his muscles had stop quivering, and his voice was back to normal. I’d just admitted my darkest secret, and he’d heard it, accepted it, comforted me, and moved on.

After five years of feeling like I was suffocating, I could breathe again.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” I said.

“You’ve officially de-flowered me, and we’ve talked about so many serious things, my head’s still spinning.” I elbowed his side for the “de-flower” comment. “What else could you possibly have in mind?”

I rubbed my leg down his stomach. “You want to know the perk to the guy being the one losing his virginity?”

Jesse cleared his throat as my leg brushed over the part of him that was already hard again. “That he’s not a virgin anymore?”

I laughed as I pivoted on top of him. “No,” I said, running my hands up his chest. His eyes were excited, along with the rest of his body. No sleep for the weary. “That he can do it again right after.”

Chapter Sixteen

Jesse had been right. I did almost pass out into the pancake batter the next morning. Although it was huckleberry, not blueberry.

We did go to sleep. Eventually. But an hour of sleep didn’t really cut it. I was waiting for the coffee to brew and almost counting the minutes until I could be with Jesse again.

It would be one long-ass day.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Rose came up beside me holding a bowl and beating the eggs inside it with a wire whisk.

I didn’t care if she offered me a million dollars for my thoughts. I would not admit having dirty thoughts to the mother of the boy I was having them about.

“It’s too early for thoughts,” I said, flipping a few pancakes. After my first pancake catastrophe, I hadn’t burned another batch.

Knock on wood.

Or . . . ehem . . .

Shoot. I was blushing in front of Rose.

“Did you enjoy the dance last night?” she asked.

Focus on the pancakes and try not to sound like an imbecile. “I enjoyed myself.” Especially the after party.

“I’m glad, sweetie,” she said, heading back over to the stove with her whipped eggs. “We all work so hard around here, it’s nice to let your hair down and have a good time.”