“Harl—”
“You can talk to me, though, if you ever want to. I’m always—”
“Harley,” I force out, making her stop and stare at me. “Harley,” I repeat more softly. “It’s okay, Angel. Riley wasn’t raped.”
“She wasn’t?” Harley’s lower lip trembles before relief flares in her eyes.
Part of me wants to seal my mouth shut, stop it from saying what it’s about to. But I know that I can’t do that to her. She’s been honest with me about her past. I owe her the same.
No secrets.
“No, Harls, she wasn’t,” I whisper. “I was.”
Confusion knits her brows together as she looks at me. All I can hear is my heart thumping in my ears as I wait through agonizing seconds for her to speak.
I tighten my arms around her to keep her from falling as her smile falls away.
“Y-you? Reed?”
I rest my forehead against hers, her reaction to my confession making her breath shallow as she stands deathly still in my arms.
“Yes, Angel,” I breathe against her lips, wishing I could kiss her and make her forget everything I’ve just said, because I’m not sure if she will ever look at me in the same way again.And I couldn’t fucking bear that.
Her voice cracks and comes out coarse. “You’re saying—”
I hold her tighter against me, hoping that she never asks me to let her go.
“I was raped. Not Riley. Me.”
Chapter nineteen
Harley
Theclockisticking.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
It’s loud. So loud that it’s sending deep tremors through my body.
Only, the guesthouse doesn’t have a clock.
I swallow the creeping sickness back down my throat as thetick-tockthuds in my ears and my chest, so hard the back of my ribs will definitely be bruised.
It’s my heart. It’s the sound of my heart trying to keep beating as Reed’s admission floors me. Three short words that has my heart feeling as though it could stop at any moment. Rendered useless from the knowledge that the man standing in front of me has been subjected to something so… so…despicable.
“I was raped.”
“It’s okay, Angel. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” Reed’s deep voice is calm, and it reaches into my chest and wraps itself around my heart, soothing it until it feels less like a grenade about to detonate.
He kisses me, his lips tenderly moving in my hair, on my forehead, over my cheeks.
I search his eyes for pain. But there’s only worry and concern, pouring out of him as fast as the tears he’s wiping from my cheeks.
“It’s okay, Harls.”
Wait. He’s soothing me?
He kisses my lips, then scrunches his eyes shut. “Please kiss me, Harley. Let me know this hasn’t changed anything.” His voice is soft, but there’s an undercurrent in it.Pain. It’s saturated in his words as he presses his lips to mine again. “Harley?”