“Jesus.” The muscles of Ford’s throat worked up and down, as aggression radiated off him in waves. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because with you, everything was new. You didn’t know my past. You didn’t look at me with pity in your eyes. And as naïve as it might have been, for those first months I was at school, I actually believed I’d left it all behind. I thought I had a fresh start.” Pushing up from the sofa, she walked back to the window, checked the street again.
There was a chance her father didn’t know where she lived. That Timothy didn’t, either. But that chance was slim. All she could hope was that even if they did know, they didn’t know about Ford. He could have been going into any of the apartments in the building.
“School. That’s not cheap,” Ford stated, his sharp mind beginning to work through the pieces of what she’d told him. “How were you paying for it?”
“Not with anything illegal, if that’s what you’re asking.” She wouldn’t blame him if it was. “My grandfather saw what my dad was doing to my mom—to our family. And somewhere along the line, he started saving money for college. He thought an education was the only thing he could give us that my father couldn’t take away. That once we had it, it was ours forever. That’s what my grandfather had hoped would happen anyway. He kept the savings secret until it was time for the college applications to start going out, and then he told me what he’d done. Mickey hadn’t been interested in school and so, with a few student loans, there was nearly enough for my tuition for four years. The only problem was, he hadn’t anticipated how resourceful Danny Ahearne could be once he knew the money was there. The lengths he’d go to or the lines he’d cross.”
“What happened?” Ford asked, his voice low, pained.
“I thought I was set. My grandfather had never bent to my father. Not when he asked, begged, or threatened. And I don’t know, I guess I just believed he was outside of Danny’s reach. I should’ve known better.” But she hadn’t, and there had been times when she’d wondered if that had been a blessing or a curse. Eventually she came to accept it as both. “So I went to school and when we met, I believed my life was finally my own. That you and I had a chance. I let myself fall in love with you, Ford. And when I went home for break, all I was thinking about was how soon I’d be able to get back.”
“Only that’s not what happened.”
Her parents had been sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her. Her father’s head hung low, his eyes filled with the kind of apology she’d seen a thousand times before. But she hadn’t believed it. She kept telling herself there was no way. That Danny couldn’t have done it again. That her grandfather was stronger. Smarter.
But every man had his weakness. Even her grandfather.
“Danny had gotten into trouble again. Deeper than before. And when the guys looking for payback threatened my mom—well, I’m glad my grandfather paid. I couldn’t have lived with something happening to her when the resources were there to stop it.”
“You could have told me.” Ford was at her back again, standing so close and yet not touching her. “You could’ve trusted me.”
She nodded. Even then she’d known Ford would forgive her for lying to him. That he wouldn’t judge her for her father’s sins. But there’d been more to it than that.
“I was humiliated, Ford. So embarrassed, and not just because of Danny’s actions. I should have known better. I should have prepared myself for the inevitable. I should have stopped to think for two seconds and I would have realized the only reason my father hadn’t gotten that money is because he didn’t know about it. That the second he realized there was someone capable of bailing him out, the bets and loans and consequences were only going to get bigger. That’s how my father works. And I should have known about it.”
“I get that you were embarrassed. What you’d been living with—no one should have to deal with that. But Christ, Brynn, was that worth more than everything we had?”
She let out a short, humorless laugh. Never. But he was.
She turned to him. Touched his face where the muscle in his jaw was bunched tight.
“What we had, Ford, was over the minute my dad got his hands on that money. There was no going back to school for me. That fantasy about what my life would be like, and the kind of potential I had, was over.”
“Again, what about us?” he bit out through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry about your education. Christ, you know I am. But it didn’t have to change you and me. We could have been together. All this time, Brynn. You and I could have been together.”
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “How would that have worked, Ford?” she asked as gently as she could, trying to make him see. To understand. “I had to move back to Milwaukee. I had to get a job, and you—”
“I wanted to marry you!”
For a second all she could do was stare. Try to swallow past the heartbreak pushing past her chest, rising in her throat, too big to contain.
“Ford,” she whispered. But then he had hold of her arms again and was backing her to the wall.
“Did you hear me? I know we were young, but I wanted to marry you. It wouldn’t have mattered whether you needed to stay in Milwaukee for six months or a year or two years. It’s an hour-and-a-half drive, and I would’ve done it every single weekend if it meant being with you. Damn it, Brynn, I would’ve done it every day. I loved you.”
“And I loved you, Ford. Which is why I couldn’t let that happen. When you called me at home, Danny heard us talking. And do you know what the first thing he asked after we hung up was?”
Ford’s brows were pulled so far forward his eyes looked like black coals behind them.
“What?”
“What your family did. He wanted to know your last name. What kind of degree you were going for. What town you were from.” From anyone else’s father those questions wouldn’t be the glaring red flags they were with hers. But she knew. “He was trying to figure out what you were worth. What kind of resources there might be behind you. What was within your family’s reach to get.”
The shock was there in his eyes. The compassion and the hurt. “Still, if we’d known—”
“No. It doesn’t matter if you know his game. It doesn’t matter if you’ve steeled yourself against his bullshit. There’s always a weak spot. And he always finds it.” She let out a shaky breath. “It’s why I told you not to come up. Why I was willing to tell you whatever it took to make sure you’d move on and forget about me. I couldn’t let him meet you and find out you weren’t up to your ears in student loans, or the last name I’d given him wasn’t yours. I couldn’t let him do to you or your family what he’d been doing to mine since before I was born. You deserved better, and I loved you enough to make sure you got it.”
Ford shoved away from her, stalking across the room and back. “God damn it, Brynn. You shouldn’t— We could have—”
His thick fingers shoved through his hair as he glared at her. The ceiling. The floor. And just when she was sure he was going to walk away again, he swore—and catching her by the wrist, tugged her into a crushing kiss.
Chapter 16
Hard. That’s how Ford took her mouth. There were times for gentle and sweet, times when he wanted to make love to Brynn’s mouth for hours, but this wasn’t one of them. Not after what she’d just told him. Not after finally learning a truth he should have figured out ten years ago.
Ten years.
His fingers tightened in her hair, bunching that soft mass of curls within his hold.
“Ford,” she gasped, half breaking away, but remaining close enough so their lips brushed with her every word. So he could see the haze of desire beneath her heavy lids. “We have to stop.”
There hadn’t been anyone else.
She’d been trying to protect him by breaking his heart. And he’d fucking let her.
Not again.
“No. We don’t.” He kissed her again, harder. Devouring her mouth until her arms wer
e locked around his neck, her fingers in his hair, her body seeking every point of contact possible.
She moaned, opening beneath the press of his kiss. Clutching at his chest, his shoulders. He pushed his tongue past her lips and thrust deep into all that sweet, wet heat he never should have let go.
Her tongue met his, sliding over and around it. Following the advance and retreat until their bodies were synced in motion from head to toe. Until he thought there might be a chance she would listen to what he had to say.
“I’m not giving you up, Brynn,” he growled against her throat, pausing to scrape the tender flesh there with his teeth before soothing it with his tongue.
Her fingers balled in the shoulders of his shirt, pulling him closer. Only to then push him away. “Ford, wait. Please, you don’t understand.”
He pulled back and met her eyes. “Then explain it. What happened today? Tell me what changed.”
Whatever it was, she needed to tell him. So he could tell her why it didn’t matter. How it wouldn’t change anything. That she was his.
She shook her head and tried to look away, but that wasn’t happening. Catching her chin in his palm, he waited.
“My dad got out of jail just before you and I reconnected,” she whispered, her eyes welling with fresh tears and ripping his heart from his chest. “I hoped he would leave me alone, but he found my number and tonight he called. He owes more money.”
There it was. “And he expects you to help him out with it.”
“He said I needed to know. Because if he could find me, then the guys he owes will be able to find me, too.” She swallowed and shook her head, her next words barely more than a whisper. “And yeah, the translation to that is he thinks I’ll help him out with it.”
Ford bit back a curse. He’d been an idiot.
He’d told himself what happened when she left him didn’t matter. All those years ago, he’d convinced himself to lock the fucking caveman in his cage and be reasonable. Accept that they were just too young. That they were kids who made mistakes.
But from what it sounded like, Brynn had never been allowed to be a kid. As a little girl she’d been worrying about issues and facing responsibilities most adults wouldn’t know how to contend with. She still was. And worse, she was doing it without him.
“And that’s why you’re trying to break it off with me?”
“Now do you understand?” she asked. “I’ll never be free of this and you can’t be a part of my life without my father ruining yours. These people, they’re dangerous.”
Rage ripped hot through his veins, but his touch was light as he brushed his thumb across her kiss-swollen lips. “I understand that I never should have left you alone.”
“Ford,” she said, her tearful voice breaking on his name.
He cupped the back of her neck and cradled her jaw in his hands. “I understand that after ten years of wondering if I’d ever have another shot with you, now that I do, I’m not about to let anyone—not your father, not the threat of some thugs, not even you and all your good intentions—take it away from me.”
Her eyes closed as she shook her head. “I don’t want you dragged into this. I don’t want my dad to look at you and start sizing up your vulnerabilities. I couldn’t live with it.”
“And now that I know what happened to you, I can’t live with leaving you alone to face your father’s mess again.” He wouldn’t. “So what you need to understand is that I’m not going anywhere.”
She peered up at him through the dark spikes of her lashes, her eyes filled with longing and a heartbreaking resolution he never wanted to see again. “I need to do the right thing.”
“Then don’t ask me to give up the only woman I’ve ever loved. The woman I still love.”
A ragged breath tore past her lips and she bowed her head, pressing it into the center of his chest.
“I love you, too.” Then, looking up into his eyes, she took his face in her hands. “I never stopped. But Ford, it doesn’t change what has to happen.”
She loved him. The words hit him dead center, knocking the wind from his lungs before spreading wide like the grin on his face. She fucking loved him.
The switch in his head flipped and the caveman took over.
“It changes everything.” Ducking low, he caught her by the backs of her thighs and hauled them up at either side of his hips.
“Ford!”
“Say it again,” he demanded, leaning into the vee of her legs as her shoulders braced against the wall behind them. He rocked into that sweet spot that made her breathless, made her moan his name and pull at his hair.
“I love you.”
Wrapping his arms tight around her, Ford abandoned the wall and carried her back to her bedroom. He laid her on the unmade bed and, following her down, ground his hips against her. She arched into the pressure, one heel hooking around the back of his thigh as she urged him closer. Whispered the words he needed to hear again and again as their movements became frantic, desperate.
He reared back, stripping her of her yoga pants and panties in one swift motion.
Just as quick she had his fly open, one hand around his hard-on and the other shoving his jeans and boxers down far enough to free him. And then he was braced above her.
The caveman was begging for him to take her. To know the tight wetness of her silky walls without any barrier between them. The caveman wanted to mark her with his cum. Make her his and stake that claim by every primitive means there was.
But the caveman was going to have to wait for the more evolved side of Ford to put a ring on Brynn’s finger, ask for her forever. And when he had it—only then would he take that next step of begging her to let him get her pregnant. Until that promise was secured and she gleefully agreed, the caveman had to wait.
Quickly Ford rolled on a condom. Their eyes locked as he dragged his length back through the warm slickness of her folds. Then, notching himself at her opening, he bit out a harsh curse when she rocked up to take him just as he thrust down.
Fucking heaven.
Her inner walls pulsed around him, clenching when he bottomed out, sinking as deep as her body would allow him to go. Nothing had ever felt so good, so right.
He pulled out, withdrawing nearly to the head, again experiencing that decadent flutter and clench around his length. Brynn’s heel dug harder into his ass, her fingers knotting in his hair as she impelled him deeper. Then deeper still with the canting of her hips and the press of her fingers at his lower back.
He withdrew, her flesh clinging to his length, before sinking deep again.
Unfuckingbelievable. Every time.
“More,” she begged, her inner walls spasming around him as he thrust full length again and again and again.
They might have had a thin layer of latex between them, but now that Brynn had given him her secrets, trusted him with her truths, it was as if all the barriers that mattered were removed.
Almost all.
He had a few truths of his own to share. But they could wait another hour or two.
Chapter 17
Head resting on Ford’s chest, Brynn watched the fading afternoon light through her bedroom window.
Maybe she should have been stronger. Resisted instead of giving in.
She didn’t know. Her intentions had been so clear before Ford showed up. She’d known what she had to do, what she had to say. Why it was so important. But then he’d walked in the door, and after that everything became a blur. He still loved her. And even though it made her the worst kind of selfish, lying there in his arms, his heart beating steady and strong beneath her ear, she couldn’t regret it. She was glad to have been with him at least once without the secrets. Without the worry, he would see all she was hiding right there in her eyes.
Ford stirred, and smoothed her hair back from her face. In his deep voice, gravelly from those few minutes of sleep, he asked, “What are you thinking?”
So many things. She was thinking about the things she cou
ldn’t take back and the things she wouldn’t change. But mostly she was thinking that she loved him. And what loving her would cost him.
“Us.”
It must have been something in her tone, because the muscles beneath her tensed.
“Our future together.” Not a question. More like a clarification. One that hurt her heart to have to negate.
“You shouldn’t be here, Ford.”
Propping himself against the wall, he met her eyes and held them with a level stare. “No problem. Let’s go to my place.”
This wasn’t going to be easy. Not that she’d thought for a moment it would be. But the way he was looking at her, as if through will alone he could change what had to happen next—God, if only she could let him. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“It ought to be. You aren’t alone in this anymore, Brynn. We’re going to handle this thing with your dad together.”
“No.” Shaking her head, she sat back on her knees and pulled the sheet to cover her. “I’ll handle this thing with my dad. Like I always do. And Ford, I’m not going to let you get involved, because it won’t be the last time. It never is. And it wouldn’t be fair to you or to the people you love. People like Ava. Like Penelope.” She had to stop, as that precious wrinkled face she’d only seen in pictures, but felt as though she already knew through Ford’s accounts, came to mind. She’d never let her father or Timothy near that little girl. “People who could be used or threatened. And for no reason other than their loose connection to my family.”
“Jesus Christ, Brynn. How bad is it?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. I already know it’s bad enough you think the only way to protect me and the people I care about is to leave. But that’s not happening. I’m going to get you clear of this once and for all. I’m going to make it so you never have to be afraid again.”
That Ford wanted to, that he thought he could, touched something deep in her heart. But he needed to understand her world wasn’t like his. Things didn’t always work out the way they should.