She clenches her jaw, silent but listening.
“There’s a good chance you won’t be in a controlled environment when it happens.” I pause, searching my mind for scenarios. “You’ll be in a classroom or in a bar with no one around to hold you through the aftermath.”
Her mouth opens, forming a half-stunned, half-smiling O of disbelief. She stares at me with overly bright eyes then collapses over her lap in an outburst of laughter.
“Oh God, Jake.” She continues to laugh, but it’s mocking and forced. It’s not her laugh. “How much time did you spend online?”
I grind my teeth. I spent six years researching all the ways I can help her.
She shakes her head, still laughing. “What phrases did you search on? How to repair a ruined girl?”
I punch the brake so hard the inertia sends her careening against the shoulder belt. Her head whips forward, and she releases a choked oomph.
Her hands flatten on her thighs, and she straightens in the seat. Then she slowly turns her neck and scowls the sexiest scowl I’ve ever seen. “You’re such an asshole.”
I lurch through the space between us, put my mouth an inch from hers, and inhale her fuming breaths. “You have no idea how badly I want to kiss the insolence off your face.”
Her chest hitches, and her gaze lowers to my lips.
There’s no build up. Or maybe it’s been building for years, but my need for her is ravenous. It roams, feral and restless, through my body, prowling under my skin, throbbing at the base of my spine, and tightening my balls. I need her, I need her, I need her…
She places a finger on my chest and pushes. “No thanks.”
I snap out of the hungry trance and return to my side of the seat.
Fucking fuck, what am I doing? I can’t kiss her. Not until I deal with the boyfriend. There’s an order of operations for a reason. A carefully considered plan.
Focus on the plan.
Letting my foot off the brake, I roll the truck forward. The ranch sits on the other side of that hill, just a few minutes away. The moment we arrive, she’ll be distracted by Ketchup.
I need to wrap this up. “In two weeks, Levi Tibbs will go free. We’re going to kill him, quietly and efficiently, and bury the body in the ravine.”
Silence.
“Any questions?” I ask.
“How do you know my triggers?” She rests a hand on her wrist, stroking it. “Why do you even care? Last time I saw you, you couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Now you’re… I don’t know what this is, but it feels like the coercions of a madman. Stringing me along with lies about my horse? What the fuck are you doing?”
“For each answer I give you, you’ll have a dozen more questions.”
“No, I—”
“I promise you, Conor. Everything you don’t know is connected to other things you don’t know. There are so many…” Secrets. I rub a hand down my face. “I could unload it all on you right now. Full disclosure. But if I did that, I’d lose my leverage.”
“Leverage for what?”
Here we go.
“Your obedience.” I hold up a hand when she starts to interrupt. “I’m going to peel away your walls, piece by piece, using my methods. For every session you submit to, I’ll answer more questions.”
“You’re going to hold back information so you can dole it out like little rewards? That’s fucked up, Jake.”
“No, I’m going to trade answers for your participation. Answers in exchange for progress. If I divulged everything now, you wouldn’t agree to work through the grieving process.”
“Grieving process? I’m not—”
“You need to grieve the night in the ravine.”
She stiffens. “No, I don’t.”
“You were raped. Sodomized. Abused—”
“Stop!”
“You need to grieve your relationship with your family. The damage your dad did to you. His death. Your brother’s incarceration—”
“I can’t. I don’t need this.”
“You need to grieve our relationship.”
She needs to be enraged about it. She needs to loop back, reflect, and let herself be sad. I can’t move forward with her until she acknowledges the things I’ve done.
“I’m not broken,” she whispers.
“You don’t need me to fix you. You need me to sit with you in the sadness.”
To be on the brink of something so momentous and consequential demands diligence. Impatience is my enemy. Insatiable desire is my weakness.
As I watch Conor nuzzle Ketchup’s nose, every molecule in my body screams at me to go to her, to touch her, to kiss, lick, bite, and devour her, and to shove myself so deeply inside her she won’t be able to push me away.
I can’t believe she’s here.
She’s home, and it’s finally safe for her to be here.
We haven’t gone to the house yet, but she moves around the stable like she never left. Checking Ketchup for scrapes and bumps and mucking out the stall, Conor throws herself into old tasks with a smile that lights up her whole face.