Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
While I’m processing, her arms extend, her chest lifts farther away from mine. She’s pushing off me.
I hold her thigh. “Harriet—”
“You don’t get it.” She presses her palm to her sternum, as if she wants to feel each breath she takes. “I would’ve done it, Ben. I would have gone through with it—you need to know that.” I never desert her gaze. Not even as she asks, “So you see now, why we can’t be friends?”
“No, this is exactly why we’re friends. Because I understand why you did it.”
She shakes her head over and over and over. “No, Ben. You can’t. We can’t. Do you honestly think I can be around you after this? Every time I look at you, all I’ll think about is the deal and how fucked up I am. How I always, always think sex is the answer to problems. A currency. It’s a loop I can’t escape, not even around you.”
I figured this might be an issue for her, but hearing her admit it has turned the theory into reality. It only makes me want to stay. I pinch my watering eyes, then say with confidence, “You don’t need to replay it on repeat when you see me. I’m not judging you—”
“Your brothers—”
“Would probably pat you on the fucking back, Harriet. They would see what I see.”
She’s very still. “What do you see?”
“You go to the ends of the earth to help people you barely even know. Imagine what you’d do for someone you loved.”
She looks away, out the back windshield, and then bursts into sudden tears as this reaches a vulnerable place that I think surprises her. I hold Harriet while she collapses into my chest. Lifting the blanket back up her legs, I feel her body shuddering against me.
“You haven’t fucked up,” I whisper, stroking her hair before wrapping my arms so tight around her small frame. She buries into me, and I rock her a little, resting my chin on her head. “This doesn’t end here, petit oiseau.”
Feeling her calm is calming me too. I’m not hurting her. I haven’t hurt her. After a couple minutes, her tears stop and her breaths slow. She looks up at me while I stare down at her.
“You’re not alone, you know,” I tell her. “I’m far from perfect. We all do things we wish we could take back.”
“You offer blow jobs in exchange for things too?” Her deadpan voice makes me smile.
I’m happy to hear her joke again. “I wish. Seems like a very effective trade.”
“It was, until tonight.”
Damn. The urge to protect her throttles me to the core. I want to ask if she was safe. I want to ask if any of the guys hurt her. I want to hurt them, if they did. She’s been doing this for…fuck-knows how long. “Can I ask when it started?”
She turns her head, her cheek against my bicep that curves around her. “Years ago, I guess.” It takes her a couple minutes to gather the next words. “One of my mom’s ex-boyfriends, arguably the worst one, used to be strict and…angry over dumb shit. I came home too late without texting. I forgot to take out the trash before school. She microwaved the lasagna for too long. He’d throw TV remotes, lamps, chairs at me…at her, and she always made excuses.” I see Harriet’s cringe forming. “She’d claim I hated him because I was jealous. She’d get pissed at me when he stared at my body, but that was par for the course with Hope. It was always my fault if her boyfriends looked at me like they…” Her voice tapers out.
I tuck her closer while she expels a long, heavy breath. Then she says, “One day, I guess I realized I could use his gross fantasies against him. I told him I’d blow him if he’d leave my mom and never see us again. He’d be gone for good.” She inhales. “And it worked. Mostly because he thought I might’ve recorded him. He’d be in jail, so…he chose life without bars and without us.”
I stare up at the car’s ceiling. My head heavies. “How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
I cut my glare to the window, feeling the weight and pain of that. “Fuck him,” I let out. “He deserves to be in prison.”
“I didn’t actually record him.” She sits up a little more. “It wasn’t my first blow job so don’t think that perv messed me up or anything. I was in control. It was my idea, and he’s not in the back of my head doing damage.” She clings to my gaze, seeing I’m not looking at her like she’s broken. “How can you still want to be around me…?”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Fisher,” I whisper. “We all have different starting lines, and yours was much farther back than mine. Yet, you got yourself so fucking far without any help. When you had more reasons to fall, you kept getting back up. You kept going. You don’t think that’s admirable?”