Beyond Broken(104)

"Maddie, come here," he said.

"I need to finish this."

She heard him sigh, get off the couch, and before she realized it, he'd plucked her off the ground. She cried out in surprise, grasping his shoulders in a panic, before he returned to the couch and pulled her down with him so she straddled his thighs.

"I'm going to say this once," he said, his hands settling over her leggings-covered ass, holding her in place. She could feel the heat from his palms seep through the thin material and despite how upset she was, she felt her body respond to his closeness. "I've been with very few women in the past five years. The last one was almost six months before my uncle had been diagnosed, okay?"

Her brow furrowed. "But the ropes … and you said you'd been with a lot of women in the past eight years."

"Yeah, to piss you off when we were fighting," he said. "The majority of those women had been right after I found out my ex-girlfriend had been cheating on me. I'm not proud of it, but there were a lot during that time period. I was twenty. They thinned out after a couple years."

What? His ex-girlfriend had … cheated on him? Who the hell would cheat on Caleb?

Maddie shook her head stupidly. "I don't understand. She cheated on you?"

"Yes."

Before her brain could process that, her jaw hung open and she blurted out, "Was she out of her flipping mind?"

Caleb lips twitched. "Arguably."

Puzzle pieces were starting to come together. "Did you … care about her?" For some reason, she couldn't bring herself to say 'love.'

Caleb tilted his chin down. "I thought I did."

She swallowed hard. His mother, his aunt, his high school girlfriend, and now this girlfriend …

Maddie wondered how in the world he'd managed to stay sane and not hate the entire world. He'd suffered pain, betrayal, loss. He was so unbelievably strong that it boggled her mind.

And then-damn her hormones-she burst into tears. They weren't soft, trickling tears either, but ugly ones. Really ugly ones. Poor Caleb looked like she slapped him in the face and she probably would've found his expression hilarious if she didn't feel so devastated.

She fell face first into his shirt. "I-I'm sorry. I c-can't … " but she couldn't say anything more.

Maddie felt his hand come around to cup the back of her head. "What's wrong?"

Everything, she wanted to say.

"I-I'm just u-upset," she hiccuped through her sobs.

"That I cared about my ex-girlfriend?" he asked, tone incredulous.

"N-no," she said, lifting off his shirt, which she'd thoroughly soaked with her tears. Taking deep breaths to try and calm herself down but failing, wondered how to explain everything that was running through her head. So, she went for honesty. "You've been through so much, Caleb. And I h-hate your mother for not taking care of you, and your aunt for abusing you, and Charlotte flipping Callahan for telling everyone about it, and your ex-girlfriend for cheating. It makes me s-sick to my stomach just thinking about it all, about how they treated you! Because you're such a great man. Y-you're strong and loyal and you endured it all even though you didn't deserve any of it."



       
         
       
        

Caleb's voice was ragged and Maddie could see the way he chose his words carefully. "I don't want your pity. I don't want you thinking that I was a victim, Maddie."

"But you were," she whispered, staring straight into his eyes as she wiped away the tears staining her cheek. "And there's nothing wrong with that. You were a victim of other people's selfishness and viciousness. It doesn't change the way I see you. Nothing will. And I don't pity you, Caleb. I admire you."

"How can you say that?" he rasped. "After how I've treated you? All the ugly things I've said to you?"

"Because I know you, Caleb," she murmured, sniffling, pressing her body closer. "I feel like I've known you my whole life. And I know that deep down, you do care about me."

All his breath left him and Maddie marveled that she'd just been talking about the people of Teotihuacan only twenty minutes ago.

Caleb leaned his head back against the couch, looking up towards the ceiling, exposing the column of his neck. "I tried to push you away, Maddie," he admitted softly, blowing out a tired breath. "But after a while, I realized that I didn't want to anymore."

She stared at the smooth skin of his neck, at the way his Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed, at his five o'clock shadow that caused the marks around her breasts and between her thighs. And she loved him so much that she wanted to cry all over again.