I stopped moving. The sensation of his large hands on me, his breath dampening against my skin felt cold. Ransom looked up at me, likely wondering why I’d pulled away and I saw the same desperation in his eyes that had been there when he’d left his car and all those red roses behind him. He wasn’t with me. He wasn’t with the dancer. I was a body to hold on to while his mind warred and debated with the memory of Emily and the guilt her loss had created.
He blinked twice and kept his hands on my waist as though he wanted me to speak, like it had to be me who gave him permission to keep touching me. But I couldn’t. Not another second. This broke me, completely—Ransom being so lost, so blind to what was right in front of him, to the happiness I could give him because he’d never let go of his guilt. It would always be there. So would Emily, and the realization toppled me hard, so that I felt the foreign burn in my eyes, tears that never came from me, stinging behind my lashes.
I stood, awkwardly scooted away from him, but he didn’t let go of my waist. “I can’t do this.” He let me pull his hand free, but still sat up, coming closer as I stepped back. “Not with you.”
“Why?” Ransom, said, reaching for me. “What’s wrong with me? Didn’t you like the way I touched you the first time?”
It had been all I’d thought of for days afterward. Ransom touching me deep, making me feel something besides worry and exhaustion; modi, why not just say it? Making me come, and come hard. God, I’d loved it. But this? Right now? No, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. Not when I knew, to him, I wouldn’t ever be anything but a replacement.
His expression was worried, eyes squinted as though he didn’t understand why I stood away from him, why I wouldn’t let him touch me. I knew the second I explained myself that this would be over. The same kind of moment I had when I decided to leave my father’s home and never looked back. Hard, but necessary. I was good at taking care of myself. I had to be and though it would kill me, it would break me in so many ways, I could not be around him if he could never fully be with me. I could not be constantly reminded what I could have given him, if he’d only have let me.
I’d tell him the truth and break my own heart in the process.
“Ransom,” I started, leaning toward him so he had to rest back. I took a second to look over his face, wanting to remember how dark his eyes were, how those faint freckles on his cheek were shaped in a triangle. He let me touch him then, and the pain throbbed deep, knowing he’d wouldn’t resist the dancer’s fingers against his bottom lip, but would have never let me do the same thing. “I’ve always liked everything you do to me.”
His confusion was evident in the way he frowned, how those black eyes widened when I reached for my mask and peeled it away from my face, then reached back and pulled the wig from off my head, loosening my bound up hair and letting it fall around my shoulders and down my back. With nothing to hide me from him, Ransom’s confusion slipped to slow realization.
“I don’t…what… Aly…it’s…. Aly?”
I didn’t bother with an explanation. He wouldn’t hear it anyway.
I shrank two steps back, moving out of his way as he stood, clutching the mask and waiting for his temper to explode.
“Aly? I…I don’t understand…”
I could have said a hundred things just then. I could have told him how often I’d watched him when he wasn’t looking. I could have explained that I’d spent so many nights thinking about him, devising ways to slip past him in the hall just to catch a whiff of his cologne or hear his laughter when Tristian made a joke. I could have reminded him that it was me he kissed that night in the studio, that it was me he couldn’t stop kissing that day in his car. But none of that would matter. It wouldn’t take away this betrayal. And that’s what it was to him. I saw that in his expression and the shadow of disappointment that covered his face.
He stared at me, his top lip quivering as though he couldn’t control the anger. I expected him to shout at me, to insult me with more than just this hard glare. I didn’t expect his voice to be quiet or his question to be so simple.
“Why?” he said, his hands dropping to his sides.
What could I say? This time, it wasn’t about the money. But that wouldn’t matter anyway. The why was pointless. Instead, I settled on the truth.
“I wanted to help you forget.” I looked at him then, not caring that there were tears in my eyes. “Just for a moment, I wanted you to forget.”
Ransom was imposing all the time, but just then, with his frown hardening and his jaw tight, he was damn scary. I knew he’d never hurt me. Not physically. Ransom wasn’t the abusive, simple kind of guy. I just didn’t think he could wound with a look or tear me to pieces with a head shake.
I didn’t expect that he’d destroy me just by walking through the door.
But, he did.
16
I should have busted Irosnside’s lip. No one fucks with my head like that and expects me not to react. I may have learned how to calm my temper over the years, but that didn’t mean that I was always in control of myself, not when someone gets in my face. Not when that same someone manipulates me.
And Aly.
Shit.
I’d left that damn room and her lying ass only to run right into that bastard grinning at me like he had leverage.
“You wanna talk favors now?” he’d asked and I didn’t bother to answer him. At least, not until he started in with the threats. “Ransom, I’m sure the media would be interested in you getting a lap dance, especially if I have video.”
The hallway was quieter than the main club and I stopped my retreat out of that God-forsaken place the second that motherfucker finished his threat. He wanted a reaction and I gave it to him.
I’m big so most people expect me to be slow. I’m not, and when I turned and got right in Ironside’s face, it wasn’t the grip I had around his neck that had that jackass’s eyes round and scared. It was how quickly I’d managed to get his feet off the floor and his back up against the wall.
“You fuck with me about this girl and now you threaten me?” I shook him once and that asshole’s head smacked against the wall. “You think I give a fuck about some tape of me getting a lap dance? Motherfucker, I’ve had people talking about me since I was a kid. You think this shit bothers me?” I’d dropped him down when two of his overgrown bouncers started toward us. “Relax, I’m leaving,” I’d told them but not before I tilted my head, getting right into Ironside’s face. “You fuck with me, I will make shit messy for you.” My anger was sharp, pumping adrenaline so thick I had to breathe through my mouth to keep myself in check. I don’t know why I stopped, why I turned and made that douchebag another promise. “You fuck with her and shit will get messier.”
I shouldn’t have cared what Irosnide did to Aly. It wasn’t my business, but something still had me watching her back, even now.
The next few days, the damn voice in my head was so loud I missed two tackles at practice and my father had definitely noticed. He kept after me during practice, then followed me around the locker room like I’d grown three heads.
“What the hell is going on with you?”
I hadn’t answered him and turned my phone off when he kept bombarding me with texts.My head was so full of stupid noise I couldn’t concentrate on my classes or even keep my thoughts organized enough to remember to eat or shower or answer people when they spoke to me. So, I stayed in my room with the voice screaming at me, laughing, making me feel like a general nut job. Still, that was better than memory. It was better than having to admit to myself that I hadn’t been really disappointed that it was Aly dancing for me. I was pissed, sure, surprised, absolutely, but when I thought about it days later, I wasn’t really mad.