We find our rhythm like that. Asher, never taking his eyes from mine as he moves with me under the light of the waxing moon. Me, flooded with emotion spilling from my newly wakened heart.

Because I’m not a virgin. But this is all new to me. Here. With Asher in the moonlight, rough and hungry and dangerous. Exposed. This is making love.

***

Asher’s fingers thread through my hair, and he pulls my body against his. We’ve moved into his bed, and we’re tangled in his silky satin sheets, tangled in each other.

“I’ve never been any good at this part,” I whisper.

Asher releases a contented sigh. He doesn’t share my aversion to post-coital snuggling. “What part?”

“Cuddling. Pillow talk.”

“There’s nothing to be good at, Maggie,” Asher whispers, nestling his nose in the crook of my neck. “Nothing to do. Just be.”

I’ve never felt as exposed during sex as I felt tonight, and yet I’m finding myself less afraid to share in the aftermath. Less afraid the man I just gave myself to might really see me. Usually, I find myself lying there in awkward silence mentally battling the words of my father’s ghost.

Whore. Slut. Loose woman.

That’s slow coming tonight, but I’m waiting for it.

I inhale. Exhale. Repeat. My muscles relax incrementally. Asher’s arm wraps around my waist and I feel his breath against my ear, feel his chest rise and fall against my back. I melt a little.

“I have you,” he murmurs. “You’re safe with me.”

“Of course, I—”

“You don’t need to pretend to be strong with me, Maggie. Just be.”

I close my eyes and brace myself to fail at this simple task.

Asher’s knuckles brush over my belly.

My father’s voice isn’t here, condemning me. Nothing echoes in my ears. No images of blood-stained hands flit behind my eyes. No memories of my baby being taken from my arms in a suspended moment that feels like I’m being robbed of my soul.

I’m right here with the steady rhythm of Asher’s breath and the soft brush of his fingers against my skin.

“You’re good to me, and that scares me. I don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve better,” he growls.

I’m surprised to realize how much I like this. How good it feels to have the warmth of his body against mine, his breath against my neck.

His arm tightens around me. “Why do you call yourself a slut?”

“Because I am,” I say softly.

He doesn’t reply, and his silence is a challenge I can’t refuse. Not with this man.

So I explain. “You can only swallow ugly words about yourself so many times before they become part of your DNA. Some girls are told they’re important, so it becomes part of them. Some are told they’re talented or ugly or fat or special. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Me? I’m a slut.”

“Tell me who made you believe that.”

The room is quiet, save for the whir of the air conditioner and the soft slide of skin against satin sheets. I feel safe here, and for a minute I wonder how my life would have been different if tonight with Asher had been my first time.

“I started sleeping with my father’s best friend when I was fifteen.”

As if I flipped a switch, Asher stiffens against me. “What?”

I find his hand with mine and thread my fingers through his. “Dad was strict with all of us. About the way we dressed, about the music we listened to. The only difference was that I disregarded his rules. I liked tight jeans and low-cut tops. I liked boys.”

Dad’s voice is in my head again, so I focus on the heat of Asher’s skin, the feel of his fingers in my hair. “I know now what I didn’t understand then. That first time…” I draw in a ragged breath, exhale slowly. Asher’s fingers comb my hair. “I didn’t understand what was happening. Not really. I mean, I liked this guy, trusted him. Everyone did. He was the county sheriff and a family friend. He was my father’s best friend. And I liked him so much that I would find excuses to go to his house. It wasn’t all that uncommon for me to hang out over there, and his wife was gone a lot. She’s a lawyer, and she was ambitious and worked all the time. Then one day we were watching a movie and he poured me a glass of sweet wine. I drank and we watched. I remember we were laughing about something, and suddenly he was doing things and whispering things, and I knew it was wrong but I also knew he was…in charge? And when it was over, I cried. I cried so hard I made myself throw up.”

“Maggie.” Asher’s fingers curl into my waist but he doesn’t pull away. Outside of a psychologist’s office, I’ve never told anyone this story. I’ve never wanted to. Who would want to be involved with someone as broken as me?

“He was so mad at me. Why was I crying? I was acting like a child and he was sorry he’d made the mistake of treating me like a woman when I was going to act like no more than a girl. I was the one who kept coming around in tight jeans and low-cut tops. I was the one who flirted with him. I’d wanted it.”

“Fucking. Bastard.” Asher sits up in bed and pulls me against his chest. I lean into him, soothed by the searing heat of his anger.

“I knew he was manipulating me. Partly. But he was also partly right.”

“No.”

I shake my head against his chest. “He wasn’t lying, you know? I liked him. I liked the way he looked at me. It made me feel…special. I knew what outfits he liked—he told me—and I’d wear them when I’d be around him. I did flirt with him. But I was just a kid and when he told me that wanting that attention meant I was asking for sex—meant that I owed him sex—I believed him.” I have to stop. I have to breathe and remember that it’s over. Remember that Toby is gone.

Asher doesn’t push me. He holds me and waits.

“I knew he’d forced me to have sex. I knew I told him no. But I didn’t understand it as rape. Not then. Not when this was a man I’d never been afraid of. It wasn’t rape, it was me being a stupid girl.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“I was terrified of them finding out. Terrified what they’d think of me.” I shake my head. “Considering I’d driven him to do it, I didn’t know how to tell them. ”

“You didn’t drive him to do anything. He was a grown man in control of his own actions.”

Hearing those words feels so good.

For years, I have told myself I knew what was right and wrong. I didn’t need anyone’s platitudes. But that was a lie. I need this. I need to tell Asher. “The next time—when he said he needed me, when he said it was our secret, when he said I made him lose his mind and he couldn’t help himself—I cried the whole time. I just lay there with my hands fisted in the blankets and I thought—if I can just let him do this to me, if I can just pretend it’s okay and make sure no one finds out, everything will be all right.” I take in a shaky breath. “I’ve always been lonely. I don’t fit in with my family, and I was afraid of losing this man who had become a friend.”

Asher is holding me so tightly it almost hurts, but it’s the good kind of hurt. It’s a pain that reminds me I’m alive and I’m worth something.

“It went on for a few months before my dad caught us. I would find excuses not to go over there. Toby would find excuses for us to be together. When my dad caught us, for a minute I thought everything would be okay. I was relieved. My daddy was strict as hell but he loved me, and I thought he was going to make everything okay.”

“But he didn’t.”

This is the part that hurts the most, and I close my eyes against the pain and concentrate on the rise and fall of Asher’s chest. “Dad wanted to believe it was my fault. He needed to believe it. He needed to believe his little girl hadn’t been raped, needed to believe his best friend wouldn’t do that. So he told himself Toby’s story was true. I’d taunted him. I’d begged for it. I’d seduced him. Everyone in town loved Toby. He could have had his pick of grown women, so who would believe that he’d force himself on a fifteen-year-old?”

I stop the flow of words tumbling from my lips to take a breath, to focus on the here, the now, the feel of Asher’s arms before I continue. “Somehow the story got out. His wife left him and he left town, and everyone thought it was my fault.”

“You were fifteen.” When Asher says it, it sounds so simple. There’s no way he can understand how much I need his faith in me. Even six years later.

Again I find myself wishing I could send him back in time to my teenage self. She needed him even more.

“My dad died later that year.” I hate this part—discussing how my mistakes destroyed my father and my family. “He had a heart attack and died. The stress of it all…it was just too much for him. Will was the only one willing to speak up and stand up for me, but he was at college. For months after we buried my dad, my mom couldn’t look me in the eye.”

He brushes my hair from my face and presses a kiss to my forehead. “It wasn’t your fault, Maggie.”

“I know that,” I whisper.

He slides a lock of my hair between his fingers. “Do you?”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” I object. “Of course I know…” I trail off because he’s not some therapist I have to convince, and he deserves more from me than the same bullshit I’ve been shoveling all my life. “I told you I’m f**ked up, Asher.”

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers.

“That’s superficial. It’s meaningless.”

“Sometimes. But your beauty? It’s the kind that radiates from your heart, Maggie, and it’s so damn bright it shines beyond these walls you’ve erected to protect yourself.”

I think of Will’s words. “If you’re broken, I’ll fix you.” Will didn’t even know the whole truth when he made that promise, but he believed I needed fixing. “If I’m not a slut, I don’t even know who I am.”

Asher rolls me onto my back until his body is over mine, my face framed in his hands. “Don’t be afraid to break, Maggie. Stop holding on to the ugliness just to stay whole.”

Hot tears slip from the corners of my eyes and roll into my ears. “What if no one can fix me?”

“You don’t need fixing.” He gives a sad smile and wipes a tear away with his thumb. “It’s like your mosaics. The beauty is already there, you just find it. Let go, sweetheart.”

“I’m afraid I’ll shatter.”

He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses along the line of the stitches running down my palm. “If you shatter, I’ll find you.”

My eyes fill at his words, but he doesn’t try to stop it. He doesn’t ask me not to cry, he gives me permission to. He lies beside me, pulls me against his bare chest, until I’m baptized by silent tears.

Chapter Sixteen

Maggie

I wake up to an empty bed and the soft sounds of an acoustic guitar.

Asher’s bedroom is gorgeous in the morning light. One wall is almost entirely windows looking out onto the backyard and the river beyond, not to mention the beauty within the room. It’s sparsely furnished with a walnut king-size bed, end tables, and armoire, and the ceilings are vaulted, adding to the spacious and airy quality, as if it’s an extension of the outdoor space.

I pull one of his t-shirts over my head and pad down the hall, toward the sound of the soft notes and low murmurs of song.

I find him with his guitar on the other side of the house, watching his fingers as he thrums the strings and sings softly under his breath. I can’t make out the words, but I know they’re beautiful because Asher made them.

I don’t let him know I’m here at first. He’s gorgeous like this. In jeans, his feet and chest bare, the guitar cradled in his arms so natural it looks more like a piece of him than an instrument.

As if sensing me, he lifts his head and smiles. “Hey, gorgeous. I hope I didn’t wake you.” He sets the guitar down beside him and stands.

“Don’t stop for me.” I bite my lip. “I was enjoying watching you.”

He shrugs, looking a little self-conscious for the first time since I met him. “It’s new, and I’m not ready to share yet. How’d you sleep?”

I grin. “So well. I don’t think I’ve slept that well since I was five.”

“Good.” He pulls me against him, trapping my arms between our bodies. “Then maybe I can talk you into sleeping here again.”

I hum, considering. “Maybe…”

“Can I feed you? I’m not the best cook, but my housekeeper keeps the freezer stocked with some pretty delicious choices and I know how to work the microwave.”

“Tempting, but I have to be at the gallery in a little under an hour. We need to finish staging and inventory before the grand opening.”

He brushes his mouth against my neck, no doubt leaving beard burn behind.

“How’s that going, anyway?” he asks.

I moan, much less interested in talking about the gallery than I am in letting his lips continue their exploration. “It’s going fine.”

The heat of his mouth leaves my neck, and I open my eyes to find him staring at me.

“What?”

“He kissed you the other night.”

I swallow, shifting back half a step. “I’ve mentioned that.”

“Do you want him to do it again?”

I take another step back. I don’t want to have this conversation. “Things are over between me and Will.”