“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. It was a long time ago.” I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes. I focused on his chest, on the rhythmic rise and fall of it. “I was put into the foster system after that. I, um, often found myself getting into trouble, so I went through a lot of homes.” The memory sent a pang through my chest. I remembered who I’d been then, a little girl whose only desire was to be wanted by someone. Anyone.
“When I was twelve, they somehow found my paternal grandmother. She hadn’t even known I existed since my father had died in a car accident before I was born. But she took me in.” The thought of my grandmother, back when she was healthy, made me smile. She had been such a sweet lady. A bit sassy, but I loved that about her. I wished she’d stayed like that for longer.
“A few years later, she started showing signs of dementia. I took care of her for as long as I could, but it got to be too much, and it wasn’t safe for her. She needed full-time care. She went to a long-term care facility when I was seventeen.”
Atlas brushed the hair back from my face. The gesture caused my gaze to snag on his. His eyes were soft, but guarded, as if he didn’t want me to see his true emotions. “And who took care of you, Wren? What happened when your grandmother went away?”
My cheeks heated and pressure built behind my eyes, but no tears came. I had let them all out already. I cleared my throat. “The high school I went to made me see a school therapist when I was sixteen. I did well in school. My academics were nearly perfect, but I didn’t have many friends and with my history…they wanted me to talk to someone, I guess.” My chest burned at the memory of the first day I walked into his office, and he looked at me with those wide, dark eyes. “The therapist was young, someone new. I liked talking with him. He was kind to me, understanding. He made me feel heard. Wanted.” I shrugged, but my lip quivered.
Atlas ran his hand through my hair, touching my cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“His name was Cain Landry, and with each session we became closer. I clung to him, to his openness and his kindness and before I knew it, I thought we were in love.” Atlas froze, and I closed my eyes in shame. “I know, it was stupid. I should’ve known it wasn’t right. I should’ve told someone, but I didn’t. When my grandmother left, he took me in. He let me stay with him, and I thought that he had saved me.”
I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t, and my chest burned as the pressure in my head swelled. Atlas’s thumb caressed my bottom lip, the lip I was biting so hard I almost broke skin.
“God, Wren. I’m so sorry, baby.”
My eyes opened at the sound of the endearment. What was he sorry for? That I was such a fool?
“It doesn’t happen all at once, you know,” I said, defensiveness surging. “Things were great at first. I thought I was the luckiest girl. I went to school. He even paid for my extra massage therapy classes. But then…I was on track to graduate early, and I was close to getting my license as a massage therapist. I was excited about starting work after I was officially done with school.” I shivered, thinking about the gradual, but drastic shift in him.
“But then I got my diploma, and he didn’t want me going to my massage therapy classes anymore. He stopped paying, so I couldn’t finish. Before I realized it, I couldn’t even leave the house without him. He’d get so mad. It scared me.” I shrunk back from Atlas, curling in on myself, but he held his gentle grip on my face. “He would hurt me, sometimes. But I had nothing. There was nowhere to go. So, I stayed.”
I paused, and it was silent for what seemed like a very long time. Atlas’s hand trembled against my cheek. When I looked up into his face, his jaw was taut with rage.
“This man took you when you were seventeen, and no one did anything about it?” he said through clenched teeth.
My brows furrowed. I’d never seen him so angry. Not even today at the falls. “I didn’t tell anyone. No one from the foster system came looking for me after my grandmother left.” I shrugged. “And not too long after, I turned eighteen anyways.”
Atlas hooked a hand behind my neck, gripping it as he leaned forward. “And he did that to you?” His eyes shot down to my chest, above my frantic beating heart. “He bit you like that?”
I pressed my lips together, nodding. “He…liked to bite me. But never this bad before. He knew I was trying to leave.”
Atlas squeezed his eyes shut, as if he were in pain. He pressed his forehead against mine, letting out a pent-up, quivering breath. “Fuck, Wren. I am so sorry. I knew you were strong, but I didn’t think…I would’ve never thought…” He fumbled for words until he gave up. He pulled back, his eyes meeting mine. They flicked down to my lips.
And then his mouth was on mine.
My heart exploded as his lips moved. His kisses were like an oasis in the desert, and I drank him in. His hand wound in my hair, his nails brushing along my sensitive scalp and sending waves of tingles down my body.
I wanted nothing but kisses from Atlas for the rest of my life.
But something tugged at the back of my brain, pushing its way forward until I couldn’t ignore it. I’d just confessed to him all my secrets…almost. I hadn’t shared the worst, not yet. But after all I’d had to say, he still wanted to kiss me? Why?
I extracted myself from him with a considerable amount of effort. Our hot breaths mingled as we gasped, lips swollen and red.
“What are you doing, Atlas?” I breathed.
His lip lifted at the corner in a sweet, half grin. “I’m kissing the most extraordinary woman I have ever met.”
I shook my head, pulling back more as he leaned in. “No, I’m not—”
He cut me off with a scowl. His eyes locked onto mine, as if he could push the words he was about to say directly into my soul. “Yes. Yes you are, Wren. You are the bravest, most stunning person I’ve ever had the honor to meet.”
I shook my head again because it wasn’t true. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t extraordinary.
“I’m just…so lost,” I confessed.
I had been lost. I’d been running around, trying to act like that crazy sixteen-year-old kid again. Back when I’d found someone who first wanted me. But I didn’t think I was that person anymore. I had started collecting the pieces of myself, but I wasn’t near whole. There were so many missing shards.