LUST: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch Book 2) (13 page)

“You never… I dunno, played games or anything? As a kid?” I thought maybe focusing on the happy stuff first would make it easier.

She tipped her head just a little. “Missed out on the advent of the Super Nintendo, I’m afraid.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, but she still refused to look at me. “That’s not what I meant.” But the steeliness in my tone must have caught her ear, because with a shift and a sigh, she deigned to answer.

“Yeah. We played games. Sure. Caught lightning bugs sometimes. Beth always cried until we let them go. Sarah used to climb trees, though once she got up there, she could never get back down. And occasionally I’d make them things, like clothes for their straw dolls.”

I blinked at her. “You didn’t play?”

Hannah sipped again, this time for longer. “I was busy.”

“With what?” I asked.

I could see her grip on the glass stem hardening. “I was the eldest. I had responsibilities.”

Goddammit, Hannah.
I knew there was more to it than that. I set my fork down and leaned my chin on my hand, staring at her hard, waiting for her to elaborate, but she never did. Not until I asked her, “Is that why you left? You were tired of being ignored and put last?”

She snorted derisively. “Oh, trust me,” she muttered, “I was never ignored.” And then she drained the last of her glass and began pouring herself another.

I reached out and touched her hand. “Don’t do that. Come on. I want to talk.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, sharp and fast. “So now you think you can tell me how much wine I can have?” She set the bottle down hard. “Maybe you want to count the calories I’ve had for the day too? Or maybe you’d like to go check out my room to make sure I made the bed right?” She curled a lip in a snarl. “All my chores are done for the day,
Dad.
Pretty sure I can drink however much I fucking want.”

I sat back in my chair, putting some distance between us. The air around her was charged, like I was watching a livewire dance in midair, showering sparks and the vague scent of ozone. The temperature in the room seemed to drop by a few degrees, too, more so the longer she stared at me.
Electricity and a cold wind—always a paradox, Hannah.

“That isn’t what I meant,” I began. “I just want you to talk to me. I don’t care how much you drink. Get smashed, for all I care. Drink until you can’t walk or stand. That doesn’t bother me. I’ll be here to pick you up and tuck you into bed—”

“Do
not!
” Hannah growled, standing up so fast she knocked her chair over. “Don’t… don’t you
ever!
” She was panting, her face pale, her eyes wild. I rose too, slowly, my blood quickening in my veins. What was going on here? What the hell had I said?

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, leaving my hands on the table so she could see where they were at all times. I knew it made people feel safer, more secure, and something told me that was exactly what Hannah needed to feel right now. “C’mon, love. It’s me you’re talking to…”

Her face twisted in such disgust that she might as well have slapped my cheek. “Oh, who, Ash Brody?
You’re
who I’m supposed to talk to and… what, trust? Ash, the player? Ash, the fucking heartbreaker?”

“How about Ash, the guy who got his apartment broken into ‘cause of whatever you’re dealing with?” I asked her, narrowing my eyes. “Ash, the guy who had his personal belongings violated ‘cause someone has it out for you?”

Hannah stopped talking for a moment. Some of the wind seemed to leave her sails. “…what?”

“Yeah,” I said, “you heard me. Someone broke into my apartment, Hannah. You said you needed me to protect you, and I have been—without question. But now you owe me an explanation. What the hell are you running from?”

“I owe you?” she said, her brows steadily furrowing again. Any trace of sympathy she might have felt for me and my situation slowly dissolved. “I gave you your payment, Ash. In that bathroom stall. Or don’t you remember? Maybe you’ve got other things—other women—on your mind.”

She snatched my phone off the table before I could stop her. “What kind of texts am I gonna see if I open up your inbox, Ash? What kind of apology did you send to Tanya? Was it the same hard and throbbing one you sent to me?”

“Jesus, no!” I said, but it didn’t matter. Hannah wasn’t having it. Any of it. I flinched to the side when she threw my phone at me, allowing it to hit the wall just behind my head. It clattered to the floor in what I was certain was more than just one piece.

“You are
not
my boyfriend!” she screamed at me. She was shaking; there were tears in her eyes, hot and glistening. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “You’re not
anything
to me! You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to… to expect things! Ask me questions—get to know me—stick your nose in places it doesn’t belong!”

I had completely and utterly lost control of this situation, and in ways that hurt way more than they should have. That snarled reminder that I wasn’t her boyfriend… Christ, it cut deep. The worst part was that I wasn’t. She was right. None of the barbs she slung at me were exactly a lie. But that just made it worse, because at least if she’d gone off the deep end, I could tell myself she didn’t know what she was talking about. That I was better than she was giving me credit for.

But I couldn’t. Because she was right. There was more distance between us than just the table, a wide gulf that stretched far as the eye could see. I wasn’t going to get any answers from her tonight. Not like this.

“I know,” I told her, very softly and slowly. “I know I’m not your boyfriend. But I care about you, Hannah. I know I haven’t been the best at showing it, but I do, and… I’m sorry.”

My apology seemed to placate her only a little. Only enough to make her mouth shut and her fingers loosen, if only by an infinitesimal degree. She approached me then and I straightened, unsure of what to expect. Those heels gave her enough height to let her look me in the eye without breaking her neck, and I watched twin tears roll down each side of her face as she said:

“If you go in my bedroom, you don’t tuck me in and kiss my forehead like I’m a good girl. You fuck me. Hard. Like I’m dirty and bad. You got that, Ash? Do you fucking understand?”

I stared. What the hell was going on? “No. I don’t understand, Hannah. I really don’t.”

“Then let me make it simple for you.” She squared her shoulders, but goddamn was she shivering. “You either fuck me, or you fuck off. Those are your choices.” A hard look overcame her eyes as she added, “That’s the only thing I want from you.”

I took a long, slow breath through my nose. Frustration simmered, low but hot, in my belly, its fumes snaking into my chest like smoke off of incense. So this was how it was going to be. Hannah wasn’t going to let me deescalate. She was going to push, and push hard, and push harder, until I pushed back.

“Is this what you want, Hannah?” I asked her, my tone even but dark. “Is this what you
really
want?”

And I stared her down as I waited for her answer.

I
s this what you want
, Hannah? Is this what you
really
want?

No. It really wasn’t. And yet at the same time, it really was.

Sex was safe. You didn’t have to have deep conversations while you were fucking. It felt good enough to keep you distracted, and when it was all over, there wasn’t any point in returning to the fight that had led you there. If it would shut Ash up, I’d fuck him all night. Screw his brains out. Make him forget all about the village and my childhood and whatever other ugly questions he wanted to ask me.

I’d spent so much time trying to forget all of that. Two fucking years. I wasn’t about to let him take that away from me. I deserved to put it behind me. I deserved to forget.

“Yes,” I said, lifting my chin defiantly. His tone was a low, warning growl, but I didn’t give a shit, and I wanted to show him exactly how much I didn’t care. “Do your worst, Ash. It’s what you’re here for.”

He moved suddenly, pressing into my space in a way that instinctively forced me to take a step back. I was unsteady in these heels—seriously, fuck pumps—and I staggered, but Ash caught my wrist, allowing me to regain my balance.

“You want a guy who’ll fuck you into oblivion,” he said, pushing me back again. I almost fell this time, but his grip on my wrist was like a vise. Another step forward, and I took another back. The burn of his eyes made my stomach tense. “Who’ll make you forget all the bad things that happened to you before. Is that right?”

My back struck the wall. Seemed whenever I was with Ash, this was how we ended up—him leering down at me, and me cornered like some kind of animal. Two more traitor tears burned the corners of my eyes before slipping down my face as I nodded, my throat too tight for words.
Yes.

Ash tucked a finger under my chin, tilting up my face so that I couldn’t look away from him. “And just what am I making you forget?” he asked.

No. That was too much. My breath hitched and I forced my gaze away, turning my head, but Ash grabbed me on either side of my jaw. It didn’t hurt, but the pressure was too much for me to ignore. “Hannah… what am I making you forget?”

“Fuck you,” I whispered. I was so angry at him I wanted to spit, but I restrained myself. “Fuck you, Ash.”

He shook his head. “Not until you tell me what it is. I’ve got you, Hannah. And you’re not getting away from me now.”

You’re not getting away from me.

Those words…

I was hitting Ash before I knew what I was doing, slapping him open-handed across the face and pulling my knee up into his groin. But Ash was used to behavior like this. He deflected my knee easily, grunting softly as he chose the slap to the face, instead. Between a rock and a hard place, I think I would have done the same in his shoes. But at that point, backed into a corner and hearing those awful, twisted words in my head… I wasn’t thinking much at all.

Nothing beyond my own survival. I had to get away from him. Had to run. Had to scream. Had to…

Scream and I will put the bit back in your mouth. You don’t want that. Do you, Hannah?

I shook my head, even though it wasn’t Ash who’d asked me the question. “No… please…”

His arms were around me in an instant, pinning my arms to my sides, rendering me helpless against him. I wailed and cursed, struggling anyway, reminding myself that if I had to go down, then at least I’d go down fighting. I would never submit again. Not the way I had back then.

“Okay,” Ash said very softly in my ear. He was pulling me away from the wall, though he insisted I remain in his arms. “Okay, Hannah. Okay. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Can’t you just…” My soul felt like he was tearing it apart. I took a labored breath and shook my head. “Can’t you just fuck me and get it over with? Please? Just… just do what you’re here to do!”

Ash looked at me like I was absolutely insane. It didn’t help. But the hurt in his eyes did—the glimmer of anguish that let me know, without a doubt, he wasn’t one of
them.

“No,” he said, a simple word that gave me a disproportionate amount of comfort. “No. I’m not going to do that. Not until you tell me who the fuck hurt you. Who… who made you like this?”

When I went still, Ash slowly reduced his hold on me. After a time, when he realized I wasn’t going to hit him again, he guided me to the sofa and we sat down. I took off the heels immediately, busying myself with the straps, desperate to find something, anything, to do that wasn’t this. It was a conversation I never wanted to have. Not with anyone. Not even with my own sisters. And yet here I was, about to relive the nightmare I’d tried so hard to bury.

“Who made me like this?” I whispered, tossing my heels away from me with a shake of my head. Fuck. What a question. And the answer was one he wasn’t going to like. I turned my face away from him, steeling myself, summoning whatever courage I had to tell Ash the truth. To finally say, out loud, for the first time in two years, why I’d run away from home one night and never come back.

“My father. It was my father.”

I closed my eyes as I felt the weight of those words settle over us. I heard the pause in Ash’s breath, deafening in the silence; the fleshy clench of his hands as he made them into fists. Without any further explanation, I knew he knew where this was going. What other place could it go, really, except the darkest, most depraved reaches of the human psyche?

“He… he hurt you?” Ash said after a time—a stupid question he already knew the answer to. I nodded, but kept my gaze focused out the window, assuming that he wanted me to explain. Of course he did. He wanted the gory details.

But to his credit, he did not try to touch me. Did not try to pull me toward him. And when I remained quiet for a long time, he did not ask again. He simply waited, affording me all the time I needed to dredge up my most painful secret, fold it in my hands, and hold it out to him for judgment.

“Out here, in the English world, there’s a word called ‘patriarchy.’ It means ‘rule of the father.’ That’s what it’s like in the village. Women are substandard. Men are the heads of the households, of the village council—they comprise the entirety of the society of elders—they are in every position of power. There, back home, it’s just… the way things are. Most people don’t even question it. It’s been that way for so long that they have no reason to. It’s like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west—they simply take it for granted.

“My father was… well, I suppose
is
… a very respected man. He’s got a reputation. He’s got friends in high places. See, he’s the kind of man who can get someone what they want. Doesn’t matter what it is. He’ll find it. Offer it up on a silver platter. That’s how he got all that respect—give people what they wanted. Even when it was…” I touched the neckline of my dress, suddenly feeling very exposed. “…even when it was me.

“I was always pretty. I don’t… I don’t say that to sound vain, but it’s true. People commented on it all the time, just not like they would out here. I see women pass young girls, and they say, ‘Oh, you are just so pretty!’ like it’s the best thing in the world. But where I come from, prettiness like mine is a sin. A burden. My mother and her friends would draw their lips into these thin, grim lines and shake their heads at me. My prettiness was a problem. Even though I tried so hard to cover it up.

“Modesty is important to the Amish. But even with almost every inch of me covered by some kind of cloth—shoes, my dress, my apron, my bonnet—I still wasn’t modest enough. Not by my father’s standards. And not by those of the elders, either.

“That was the justification for… for what they did.” I wet my suddenly dry, cracking lips. “They’d say, ‘your vanity is a sin.’ Like I… like I asked for it. Like they were punishing me for some crime I never asked to commit. They… they took turns on various nights. Always, Father would escort me to their offices in the basement of the church, and then they’d…”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it. To describe the things they’d done to me. Ash, sensing this perhaps, quickly interjected, “You didn’t do anything wrong, Hannah. It’s them. It’s always them.”

I closed my eyes. It didn’t stop the flow of tears. “I fought. I did. I tried so hard. But I learned not to when they bound my hands. And sometimes… sometimes I’d scream, but I learned not to do that either when they put a bit in my mouth. The one they used for the horses…”

Every time I saw Beth with her beloved horses, it made me so mad. And I hated that I felt that way. I hated that I hated the horses for something they hadn’t done. I hated hating her for loving them. I hated all the daydreams I had about killing those beasts, ensuring Father never had a legitimate excuse to keep the bit around ever again. The anger of a teenage girl, displaced and confused. I feel guilty to this day for how cold I was to Beth about them, how cruelly I avoided the creatures who had never done a thing to harm me.

All because I could do nothing about the creatures who had.

“It was shame that kept me quiet,” I said after the tension in my throat eased up again. “Shame, and fear. Father said I would be shunned if I told—that everyone would know what a whore I was. But it got so bad. The bruises. The… the blood. Mother kept questioning it, and when I finally told her…”

I still remembered, distinctly, the look in her eyes. The confusion. The horror. And then, to my own horror, the disbelief.

“She didn’t believe me,” I choked, lifting my hand to wipe my eyes of the tears that blinded them. “She went right to him and asked, as if he’d ever admit to it! As if any of them would! And do you know what he told her, my mother, when she asked him if my accusations were true?” I laughed. It was not a happy sound. “He told her he’d caught me ‘entertaining’ some English boys out in the field. He told her he was going to spare me punishment because he thought I’d learned my lesson, but now that I was making up lies…”

The room was spinning. Furniture tilted at a dangerous angle. Pressure in my head mounted, threatening to close a certain hazy blackness in around me, and I had to put my head down between my knees and breathe before I was overtaken by it.

Now, Ash did move to touch me. His hand was on my back, rubbing steadily. I flinched and he withdrew, but I shook my head and forced myself to look at him finally. “No. Please. Don’t… don’t move away. Touch me. I… I need to feel like I’m not damaged goods.”

Those words seemed to make him so sad. “You’re not,” he told me in a way that made me believe it. And then he put his arm around me, sitting close, our thighs touching as I collected myself so as not to pass out.

When I’d regained some semblance of composure, I said, “I didn’t even stay to deal with that punishment. It was to begin the next morning. But Rumspringa was upon us, and I knew… I knew if I left, no one in Bright Falls would question it. No one in the village, either. It was the perfect excuse, the perfect opportunity to run away. No one would know why I’d done it. They’d just assume I’d chosen not to return and commit myself to the church. I was so ashamed by that point, so convinced it must have been my fault, that the idea that I’d somehow make things easier on my father didn’t even bother me. And why should it? I wouldn’t be around to see it.”

Ash frowned. “But your sisters…”

I nodded. That was an ever greater source of shame for me than my abuse was. “I know. I… I can’t really justify it. I just couldn’t take them with me. They’d never go, not unless I told them what happened, and I was convinced if I did that, they wouldn’t believe me. They’d take his side, just like our mother did. Part of me still believes that’s exactly what they would do, even now…”

“Even now?” Ash asked. He stared at me. “You still haven’t told them?”

I stared back at him, unblinking. “I’ve told no one but you.”

He sighed, and for a moment, I thought he was exasperated with me. I thought I’d gone and done the thing I’d told myself I wouldn’t do—I’d relied on him far too much, made things more complicated than he’d signed up for. But then I saw the look on his face, and I knew he wasn’t upset with me. He was furious. With them. My father, and the others who had assaulted me. Maybe even my mother, who had refused to believe me when I told her.

“Did he touch the girls?” he asked. It came out as a sound that was more animal that human. “Sarah and Beth?”

I shook my head emphatically. “No. Never. I kept in touch with them any way I could. Secret letters, delivered by Amish kids returning to the village after Rumspringa. Leaving them in a tree stump near the property, or buried in the field. I gleaned from what they told me that Father became… more careful, after I left. Tightened his hold, suspended his more… obvious activities. I bought them two years, at least—paid for their innocence with my isolation. And I’d do it again. I’d sacrifice that and more for my sisters.”

“I know you would,” Ash said softly, kissing my temple. I closed my eyes. That small gesture felt so good. “But the way you talk, it sounds like your dad was into more than just…” He hesitated. Couldn’t say the words. I didn’t blame him.

“Like I said, he could get anybody anything,” I told him, holding myself tight. “I know that at the very least, he was running drugs through the village. Not to distribute there, obviously—but as a waypoint. Someplace safe they could be stored before being distributed in the city. It earned him a cut of the cash, which in turn bought him more power. Although, I’m pretty sure that’s not the only thing he did with it. He took… trips, sometimes. He’d go to run errands with the buggy, and it would always take him forever.” I soured. “I’m sure he found plenty of other vices to spend it on.”

Ash leaned back against the sofa. He looked a little shell-shocked. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I mean… what about the police?”

I shrugged. “I thought about it. But it would’ve been my word against his. And the thing is, the Amish community is pretty insular. Cops, I found out, pretty much leave them to their own devices. Not that they wouldn’t arrest him for something like this, but they’d be hard-pressed to seriously investigate, especially with no witnesses or evidence besides my statement. On top of that…” My stomach turned. This—this was the main reason I had never felt like telling my story mattered. “On top of that, our culture, our religion… it’s all about forgiveness. There is no internal system of crime and punishment. Not really. For the vast majority of sins, there is only forgiveness. You have but to ‘sincerely’ claim that you’re sorry, and it all goes away. How’s that for justice?”