This wasn’t about right or wrong, love or hate. If I sent him back to jail, no matter that he was stronger now, he could get raped again.
“I would never send you back,” I said through gritted teeth.
He stared at me, gaze burning with unnamed emotion. “What the fuck do I care if I go back? I can’t keep you either way, so what do I care where I am when I’m alone?”
I shuddered from some combination of shock and want. We were standing in the water at the top of the cliff, the water rushing around us, threatening to pull us under.
“Why can’t you keep me?”
His expression was incredulous. “You know what I did. How it was between us. Even if we don’t tell anyone else, you know.”
“I forgave you that night, remember.”
He snorted, unbelieving.
“You were a priest. Of all people, you understand forgiveness.”
Something dark flickered in his eyes, and in those shadows I remembered what he’d once told me. I didn’t scream, Evie. I prayed. And fallen over the cliff, crashed into the water as fast and as deep as any person could do. It wasn’t a surprise he’d become isolated and cold in the aftermath. It was a surprise he’d survived at all.
“Don’t you see? I can’t ever be normal again. Never be the kind of man who can give you a real home—”
“I had a home. For twenty years I was trapped inside one. Now I want to roam. With you.”
“I’ll never be the kind of man who can be gentle with you, Evie. Not like you deserve.”
He was talking about sex, promising me more nights of bruising hands and forceful sex and sweaty, panting, screaming into the dark.
I met his gaze. “I’m not the kind of girl who needs gentle. You aren’t the only fucked-up person here, you know.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he said mildly.
“And I was broken long before we even met.”
“You’re not broken.” He almost snarled the words, his ferocity terrifying, compelling. “I love the way you are. The way you’re terrified but do it anyway. The way you stand up to me when you shouldn’t.”
I climbed over to him, throwing my knee over and straddling him. His whole body tensed as if it had been shocked, rigid instead of welcoming.
“What about the way I fight for us,” I whispered, “even though you’re trying to push me away?”
In a rush, he grasped me to him, sucking in lungfuls of air as if he’d been underwater, his face buried in my hair. “Yes, that. God, Evie. Jesus Fucking Christ, Evie.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” I teased, but then he was kissing me, consuming me, and I was falling, drowning, battered and bruised by the rapids, never wanting to surface. His hands were everywhere, fluid on my thighs, my breasts—but not stopping there, never resting, just moving over me as if making sure I was all there, as if taking inventory, possession and never letting go.
A rap on the window wrenched us apart. Outside, a police officer stood, implacable and severe.
Hunter rolled down the window.
“Everything all right in here?” The cop directed the question to me.
Hunter tensed beneath my thighs, as if I might say no, actually, I’m being held against my will and then hand him the signed confession.
“I’m fine.”
One eyebrow raised. “You sure, ma’am?”
I blushed as my vulnerable position, splayed over Hunter’s lap, came to me. I must look ridiculous to him, helpless to him, and I was.
“Well, I am a bit embarrassed.”
The cop hid a smile. “Yes, ma’am. Just making sure.”
He headed back into the station.
I watched him go as a rush of exhilaration pumped through my veins. But when I turned back to Hunter, the air rushed from the space. His eyes were rimmed with red. His lips trembled.
“You honor me,” he said.
I swallowed. It wasn’t my fault if he went to prison, wasn’t my fault if someone there hurt him. But the truth was, it wasn’t mercy that kept me mute or stayed my hand.
I’d found in Hunter a kindred, broken soul. We didn’t fit in with the rest of society and never really would—but neither did we deserve to be locked away or abused for our issues. We hadn’t asked to be this way. All we wanted now was to live in peace.
In his own fucked up way, he’d honored me that day at the motel. He’d picked me instead of anyone, he’d plucked me out of my nothingness.
I rested my forehead against his.
“Let’s go,” I murmured.
His body released its tension, reveling and accepting. “Where to?”
“I have something to show you.”