Page 40 of Mating Theory
“This is ridiculous,” I say, but I sound more panicked than doubtful. “This isn’t real.”
“It’s real enough. Needs a last name, though. You ready to tell me that?”
With my last name he could probably find out everything else. That’s another one of those rich people things. “I broke my mom’s favorite vase when I was eight. I was so afraid of telling her, and seeing her disappointed, that I buried all the pieces in the backyard. One day it just vanished and she never knew where it went.”
“That’s not a real secret.”
“You didn’t specify the kind of secret you were buying.”
“My daddy used to hit me so hard my feet would come off the ground. I would try not to make a sound. I felt like that was how I’d win, by not making a sound. Now that I’m a grown-up I think, why didn’t I scream? Why didn’t I tell? Why didn’t I tell him he was a mean bastard?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t want to fall in love with anyone. Then I met Christopher and discovered I’m bisexual. He wasn’t. So I had to love him as a business partner. Then there was Harper.” He gives a soft laugh. “You’d think I would learn.”
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Don’t get attached? It’s too late for that, Ashleigh. Love is the great human experiment. We try it again and again. It doesn’t matter how many times we fail or how much it hurts.”
“It always hurts.”
“I have this theory that sometimes it doesn’t. If that person loves you back.”
“My daddy never hit me.”
Sutton goes still, knowing this is the real secret. “Ash,” he says, the way Ky says.
“He never seemed to care much about me. I thought it was just—the way he loved me. That distant father kind of thing. More busy with work than his family. And then I turned fifteen. I needed to get bras—real bras, not training bras. And he started…”
“I love you,” Sutton says, in this fierce way. It feels like swords and drawbridges, those words. Like he wants to go to battle for me. And when he says that, it doesn’t hurt.
“He’d come up behind me. Always behind me. Never facing me. He’d reach around and touch me, and I’d go very still, because I was afraid. Why was I afraid? Why didn’t I scream or yell or call him a mean bastard?”
“Because he’s your father,” Sutton says gently. “Parents have that power.”
“He touched me under my shirt. Under my bra.”
“Christ.”
“I think I could have stayed living there, if it was that. That’s the worst part. I told my mother.” A hollow forms in my chest. “She didn’t believe me. She said I was lying, that if I wanted to say that, then I should just leave, because she didn’t want to see me.”
“So you left.”
“It hurt so much,” I tell him, tears slick on my cheeks. “She was my mother. My everything. Every day she’d say, I love you. But what did it mean? Nothing.”
He holds me until the sobbing stops. I turn in his arms, press a kiss to his neck. He becomes very still, and I squirm, trying to get closer.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says gently, and that sounds fine to me.
He lifts me in his arms and carries me there. The sheets are cool on my legs. He pulls the covers up to me. I watch as he pulls off his clothes, leaving him in only boxer briefs.
I curl into his arms, and he gathers me close.
And then does nothing.
My leg presses over his, and I can feel his arousal, but he only lies there holding me. I run my hand along his broad chest. My lips find his shoulder, his jaw, his neck.
“Ashleigh.”
“What?” I whisper. “I’m not tired.”
“You’re exhausted, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“I can’t do that with you,” he finally says, sounding resigned. And very serious.
“What?” I scramble up to stare at him. “Why?”
“Because you’re seventeen.”
“I was seventeen before when we did that.”
“Yes. And that’s something I have to face, something I should have faced before I touched you. Maybe part of me knew, but didn’t want to think about it. It doesn’t matter, because I know now. And I want you more than life, but I can’t have you.”
“I want to have sex with you.”
He groans. “Ashleigh. I can’t do that and still respect myself.”
Hurt courses through me, followed closely by anger. The anger feels safer. “This isn’t fair. I’ve been on my own for six months. I’m more of a grown-up than some kid in college where his parents pay for everything.”
“Yes.”
“And I’ve had sex before. Bad sex. Good sex.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re still not going to have sex with me? That’s bullshit, Sutton. I know you’re trying to do the right thing, but all you’re doing is taking away any power I might have had. This is my decision.”
