“You are not leaving until you tell me what’s going on, Madeline.” Eric slid right in front of me and backed himself against the bedroom door. I peeked up at him and took a step backwards. Why was I letting him get to me? Was it because I’d gotten a glimpse at the tender side in him? Was I getting my hopes up and allowing that little crack in my wall to split even more by letting him in?
“I shouldn’t have come here,” I answered, being completely truthful.
Eric was acting in such conflicting ways that I was finding it hard to think straight around him. One second he hated me, and the next he was caring for me. One second he was glaring at me, and the next he was scorching me with a heated look.
What did he want from me?
“What’s that all about?” He tilted his head to the side, bouncing his eyes back and forth from me to the window.
“What?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. I could feel myself closing off, the wall going back up, pushing him away. It was aggravating that I was doing it, but it was the only way I knew how to be.
Even with him.
Eric’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t you say, just a day ago, that you didn’t want me to be your hero?” My mouth opened and then closed. He took the opportunity to continue on, pushing off the door and slowly backing me up across the room. “Yet, here you are. In my bedroom. So tell me, why are you here?”
“Do you really want to know, Eric?” I was flying blindly. I had no idea what to say or do. I was trying to dig out the old Madeline. The unbreakable girl who pushed everyone to their knees in her wake, but it was different with him. With his soul-sucking eyes and sharp tongue. Eric didn’t put up with my shit. And he’d seen me break more than once now.
My shoulders squared, my head tipping to meet his. I could feel the strands of my high ponytail swaying against my spine. “Wasn’t it just yesterday you told me that being my hero was the last thing you ever wanted to do? So get out of my way, Eric. I’m going back home.”
“Stop it.” His words were sharp and actually caused me to flinch. They were a slap across my face, stinging my tender skin. He was suddenly in my space again and had somehow backed me all the way up to the wall across the room. His large hand wrapped around the small of my back. An emotion I hadn’t felt in a long time clouded my vision, breaking down my walls one by one. “You’ve already pushed me away once, Madeline. You closed yourself off to me and the rest of the world. I know why you did it. It was some type of twisted form of self-preservation. But there’s no fucking way I’m letting you do that again. I’m the one in charge here, and you’re going to tell me why you’re in my bedroom.”
I swore that the floor under my feet shook. My entire body vibrated with anger, and fear, and everything in between. I felt myself combusting from the inside. “Fine!” I shouted in his face, tipping my dainty chin up to meet his steely one. My lips were almost touching his. “I’m here because the man who raped me came home with my mom. So, I jumped out my window, hurting myself in the process, to get away before I came face to face with him again. I had nowhere else to go. I just knew I had to get away and go somewhere, and somehow, I ended up here. In your room.” My lungs burned. My throat was tight. Even my tongue was tingling.
Eric was unreadable. Completely blank. The only thing I noticed was that his grip on my back grew heavier as my shouts grew louder. After a moment of my labored breathing, with us at an impasse, his eyes shifted slowly from mine and over to the window.
“He’s gone now,” I managed to whisper, breaking the tightness in the air. I could feel the risen tension from both of us slowly fall to the ground in the form of relief.
r /> “You know who did this, then?” Eric didn’t look back at me. He didn’t move at all. He just stared very sternly at the window with his tight grip on my body. His hand was starting to sear the skin underneath my shirt. It was driving me mad. Not because I didn’t like it, but because I liked it too much.
My voice was still a whisper. “Not necessarily. I just know what he drives, and I caught a glimpse of his face. It…it was dark the night—”
He interrupted me with an ice-cold tone. “And what does he drive?”
I traced the side of his face, wishing he’d move away so I could go back to building my walls. But he was too close, and too warm, and too protective. “Why does that matter now?”
“What does he drive?” he demanded.
“If you’re wondering if it was your dad, you can relax, Eric. Your dad may have cheated on your mom, but he isn’t a creep.”
“What the fuck does he drive?” he growled, pinning me with a murderous glare. He shook his head, closing those deep dark eyes for a moment before opening them back up and calmly asking, “Just tell me what he drives. Please.” My heart twisted inside my chest as I watched the anger leave only to be replaced with pleading.
“He drives a red Porsche.” My answer was weak. I glanced down to his mouth and noticed his lips formed a grim line. Then, he nodded once before backing up and giving me room to breathe. My shoulders fell, and I tried to catch my breath that I wasn’t even aware I was holding.
Eric began pacing back and forth in his room with his hands on top of his head. He was wearing dark jeans and a gray Henley shirt that clung to his body, and I couldn’t stop staring at him in awe. He seemed so protective of me all of a sudden, and even though I denied it until I was blue in the face, his protectiveness was the one thing I desired the most.
Fear was knocking on my back door, ready to tackle me down with its heavy presence at the thought. I’d been pretending I was the bravest person of all for years, telling myself that fear was a useless emotion, but I was scared.
I was leery of men.
I was afraid of the ones my mother brought home.
I was afraid of my own father.
And I was afraid of Eric.
I wasn’t afraid because I thought he’d hurt me, but because I knew there would be a time in the future where I’d have to let my guard down and trust someone enough to be this vulnerable with, and deep down, I wanted it to be him.
Eric growled as he spun around, and my crossed arms fell as I pulled myself out of my panic-inducing thoughts. My heart skipped a beat when he picked the clothes up off the bed and threw them in my direction again. “You’re not going home. Put these on and come downstairs. There’s Chinese...and brownies.”