She leaned farther back, turning her chin up and closing her eyes. Whispered sounds of pleasure escaped with each breath. She couldn’t ever remember being so content. Couldn’t ever remember having a man so focused on her. It was exciting, satisfying and a little terrifying all wrapped up in one.
“Why don’t you ever talk about your mom?” he asked.
She stiffened and cursed the fact that she had thought nothing could ruin this moment.
“I don’t like to talk about her.”
The brush moved down her hair, the bristles scratching lightly at her back. He was silent for a moment as he continued his careful attention.
Her shoulders fell. She supposed it wasn’t fair. She’d asked him personal questions. If they were going to make a go of any sort of a relationship, she had to be honest. Even if the thought of him knowing about her childhood and her mother gave her hives.
“That wasn’t fair of me,” she said in a low voice. “I’m sorry. I just hate to talk about her.”
“I understand,” he said.
“It’s such a long story.”
“We have all night,” he said simply.
The quiet acceptance in his voice bolstered her spirits. He wasn’t pressing for more than she wanted to give. Which only made her want to give nonetheless.
He dropped the brush on the deck but continued to play with her hair. Soon he worked his fingers deeper until they massaged her scalp.
“Mmmm. You keep doing that, and I’ll tell you whatever you want,” she said.
He chuckled but continued kneading. He worked his way down to the nape of her neck and then out over her shoulders. She sighed in sheer bliss.
“Pop isn’t my real father. Wait, that’s not true. He’s very much my real father—the only father I’ve ever known. But he isn’t my biological father.”
If she thought he’d be surprised, he didn’t show it. He continued his soothing massage, and she relaxed her tense muscles. He didn’t say anything, didn’t react, just waited for her to continue.
“My mother…I’m not even sure how to describe her. She’s lived her entire life with her head in the sand. Bad decisions are second nature to her. She’s impulsive and reckless, and she’s simply unwilling to accept the consequences of her actions.”
“Sounds like a lot of people I know,” he said dryly.
She nodded. “From an early age, I was the emotional support in our ‘family.’ At the time, I didn’t understand that our relationship was so much different than other mother-daughter relationships. I was just trying to be the best daughter I could.
“When we didn’t have food in the house, I did odd jobs, babysat for neighbors so we’d have the money to eat. I can remember holding her head as she puked her guts up after a night of drinking. Of course, I didn’t realize that’s where all our money was going.”
Gray made a sound of disgust. “Christ, Faith. How old were you?”
She shrugged. “Nine, ten, I don’t really remember.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders and his rubs became more soothing as if he understood the difficulty she had in talking about her mother.
“When I was fourteen, she met and married Pop. I was so excited. I loved Pop on sight. He was so kind to me. Accepted me as his daughter. I had a major crush on Connor. What fourteen-year-old girl wouldn’t? He was twenty-four, fresh out of the army, and he was nice to me. Didn’t treat me like a nuisance. For the first time, I really thought that I’d landed in the kind of family I wanted.”
“What happened?”
Faith sighed. The memory of that night still held such power over her. It had been the worst feeling in her young life. Worse than the disappointments her mother had thrown her way.
“She got a bug up her ass one night. Got me up in the middle of the night and left. I was devastated. I didn’t want to leave. I even asked her if I could stay. She made me go with her, and I know it was because she had no one else to take care of her. It pissed me off. Pop was so good to her. He would have taken care of her if only she’d have let him. But like everything else, she fucked things up. Wouldn’t allow anything good to happen to us.”
His hands stilled on her shoulders, and his fingers dug into her skin. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her neck. “Where did you go? What did you do?”
Tears pricked her eyelids. “Back to our old life. Moving every few months when we got evicted. Going back to school wasn’t an option. I was too busy trying to feed us and keep a roof over our heads.”
Gray cursed.
“A year or so later, she started taking drugs. I wasn’t surprised. I had to hide money from her, or she would have used everything we had on drugs. I hated her. I wanted to leave her.”