CHAPTER 18
Charlie
My heart clenched, the pain in my chest unbearable as I listened to Gavin’s confession. I was momentarily shocked. I couldn’t deny that I was surprised by what had occurred. But it wasn’t because it happened. I was appalled that it could happen in a prison where guards would generally be everywhere.
I cuddled closer to him, my heart breaking for the guilt and pain it must have costed him to live with what he’d done to Kane. He was still tormented, still locked in another kind of prison that he’d never managed to escape.
“Where the hell were the guards?” I asked furiously.
“They got paid off to be elsewhere. Happens more often than you’d think. Luckily, someone finally came through before the assholes could slice us up or kill us.”
His big body shuddered, and I knew his pain was still there. He was still suffering.
“What happened with Kane?”
I couldn’t think of a more horrible position to be in than to have to hurt a friend just to stay alive.
“I hurt him,” Gavin mumbled. “Both physically and mentally. But he got over it. He understood why it happened, and didn’t blame me. But it still took us a while to get back to the way we were before it happened. Kane tells me all the time that I need to get over my guilt, and that it wasn’t my fault. He’s moved on. I’ve tried, but I just don’t think I can ever get past the fact that I betrayed him that way. If I hadn’t been drugged out of my mind, I never could have gotten it up enough to even have it happen.”
“He forgave you, Gavin. I think it’s time for you to forgive yourself. Kane’s right. It wasn’t your fault. And I think everybody you know, including me, is glad that you’re still alive.” Just the thought of him being killed made my blood run cold.
“Kane’s married now, and happy. I don’t think he really thinks much about his past,” I told her. “He’s in a different place.”
“He’s moved on,” I said empathetically. “You need to move on, too. Your life is different now, and you had no control over what happened to you and Kane.”
“It’s not that simple,” he said huskily. “Those memories… they still haunt me—a lot.”
“Maybe you need to replace them with something good,” I suggested.
“Like?”
“Like taking me to bed and fucking me until I can’t walk tomorrow,” I told him as I lifted my head to look into his pain-filled eyes.
A slight smile formed on his lips. “You’re a virgin. What do you know about that?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Just because I’ve never had sex, doesn’t mean I live in a bubble.”
Gavin speared his hands into my hair, and bore a hole into my face with his intense gaze. “It’s not that I don’t want you, Charlie. I think I’ve wanted to fuck you from the moment we first met. But I’m not the sort of man you need in your life—especially not your first time around. But I will take you to bed. You still look tired.”
I squealed as he swung me up into his arms and rose off the couch. He carried me into the dim light of his bedroom, pulled the covers back and plopped me into the middle of his bed.
My breath caught as he stripped down to his boxer briefs, my eyes transfixed by his perfectly sculpted body. Gavin was toned, and I wanted to reach out and trace each delineated muscle with my tongue. He was perfectly, gorgeously made.
He didn’t seem to have a single body issue, and he dropped each item of clothing on the floor carelessly until he finally climbed into bed dressed only in his underwear, and then reached out to wrap his arms around me. He covered us both with the sheet and comforter.
My head rested on his shoulder, and I felt safer than I ever had in my entire life.
“Comfortable?” he asked in a deep baritone.
“Yes.” I was comfortable, but I could also feel the hard outline of his cock as our bodies melted together.
“Good. Then sleep,” he demanded. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here to protect you.”
I already knew that. Deep in my soul, I’d always believed Gavin wanted nothing more than to keep me from harm. “Nothing you said tonight makes me feel any differently,” I shared in a whisper next to his ear.
“It should,” he answered in a coarse voice. “Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?”
“Not with you,” I answered as my eyes closed. “I don’t need it. You have enough protective instincts for both of us.”
“You really don’t think of me as an asshole because I was forced to rape my best friend?” There was a certain vulnerability in Gavin’s voice that made me try to snuggle closer to him.
“No. Neither of you had any choice, short of ending up dead. You’re a survivor, Gavin. I hate what you went through, and I can imagine the guilt you’ve harbored over the incident. But you need to let it go.” There was no way I wanted to see him suffer anymore over something he couldn’t control.
He stroked my hair absently as he said, “You never cease to surprise me, Charlie. Most women would have flipped out over my past.”
I yawned. “I guess I’m not most women. I can’t understand how anybody could blame you for what happened.”
“Many would,” he replied.
“I still want you. Maybe now more than ever.” I wanted to be with Gavin more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my life.
“I want you, too. But it’s not going to happen,” he answered in a guttural tone as he gave me a playful slap on the ass. “Now go to sleep.”
I sighed. “I’m not tired.”
“Liar,” he scolded.
“I’m still trying to get over the fact that I offered somebody my body for the first time in my life, and he turned me down.”
Gavin put his forehead against mine. “I’m not turning you down. Jesus, Charlie, I’d give my right nut to be with you right now. But I can’t.”
I knew he wasn’t lying. I heard the naked desire in his voice. “What happened in the past doesn’t matter to me,” I argued.
Somehow I sensed that if I couldn’t get through to him now, I might never make him understand how I felt. Gavin was a lot like me. He’d continue to be my guardian, but he’d bury his emotions, and I’d never get him to understand the fact that I only cared about the man he was now.
“It fucking matters to me,” he growled, then pulled his head back. “You’re too damn sweet, too damn innocent for a prick like me.”
I broke loose from his hold and straddled his body, wishing I could see his eyes, but the light was too dim, the sun still hours from rising. “I’m not sweet, and I’m far from innocent. Most of the time I walk around wishing I’d died instead of my brother. I feel unwanted, unloved. Just once, I want to feel something more. You make me feel something different, something good. Is it so wrong that I want something just for myself for once in my life?” My voice and my body quivered as I stared down at Gavin’s face.
He flipped our positions so quickly my head spun, pinning me beneath him so fast I didn’t have time to think.
I could hear his ragged breathing as his bulky form towered above me. “Don’t say you want to be dead. Don’t ever say that,” he rumbled. “Talk to me, Charlie… I can’t help you if I don’t know why you feel that way.”
A tear trickled down my face and I shook my head. “No. I just want you.”
“I’m no goddamn hero, sweetheart. I’m filth wrapped up in a now successful and legit business. I can’t change my past.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I said emphatically. “I want you exactly the way you are. You’re my hero, Gavin. You have been since the moment you kept me from dying.”
“Fuck! Is there anything I can tell you to change your mind?” he asked desperately.
I knew he wasn’t a killer, and he only stole to keep his family fed. “Nope. My opinion stays unchanged. Make me feel good, Gavin. Let me make you understand that the past doesn’t matter anymore.”
“That’s really what you want?” he asked in a low, uneasy tone.
“More than anything. I’m not asking you for anything more. Just now. Just us. Just this.” I wrapped my legs around his waist and ground my pussy against his steely erection.
“Then there’s no hope for either one of us because I can’t fight this anymore,” he said in a husky voice as his mouth came crashing down to claim mine.