It was the first time in my life that a bad idea felt like the best idea I had ever had.

CHAPTER 8.

Quaid

I shouldn't have my mouth on her.

I shouldn't have my hands on her.

My d.i.c.k definitely shouldn't be hard and pressing painfully against my zipper as she whimpered into my mouth, as her tongue curled around mine.

None of this should be happening, but neither my brain nor my libido seemed inclined to put a stop to it. As my hand wandered even farther up her side and under the hem of her tiny top only to encounter softer naked skin and the heavy swell of a plump breast, I couldn't be happier that my common sense decided to take the night off. She felt like a dream. Like a dirty, s.e.xy dream that woke me up in the middle of the night hard and hurting. She felt like a dream that made me sweat and shake as I chased down something I couldn't describe, and that I was sure I had never felt before. She felt like the dream that I was lost in and aching from right before she called me and woke me up.

Any kind of logic and rationale had vaporized the instant I saw her number on my phone, and it didn't stand a chance in h.e.l.l of making an appearance after I heard the nervous tremor in her voice when she told me she felt like she was being watched. I should have told her to call the police, let them handle whatever new kind of trouble that had inevitably found its way to her, but all the things I should do where this woman was concerned got buried under the burning and pressing need to do all the things to her and with her that I shouldn't do. Including running into the night to make sure she was safe and sound. For some reason, I needed to make sure she was okay with my own two eyes, and I needed to be a part of making sure she stayed that way.

I'd been dreaming about her-the way she would feel and taste-when she called me, the panic and pa.s.sion blended together in a complex mix of emotion that I couldn't untangle or unwind. I knew there was no way in h.e.l.l I was going back to my industrial-cold loft with its ma.s.sive, empty bed without knowing, and without taking. She made me careless and greedy. She made me want things that I knew I could never give her back. And with all of that swirling in my blood, I told myself that I had to know if the reality of her was better than the dream.

It was.

Reality was so, so much better. She was sweet. She was soft. She was responsive as h.e.l.l, and I wanted to devour her in one bite, instead of savoring her like the honeyed treat that she was. She was dressed like she was about to do yard work or maybe like she was going to go work on a car. Her outfit, messy hair, and makeup-free face should have served as a reminder that she was young, that we came from two very different places, but all I could see was the fact that she didn't have a bra on under the bib of the baggy overalls and the hint of lacy pink at her hips. It was all making my blood heat up and my mouth water. She was teasingly tempting and I wanted to take her up on all the things I wasn't even sure she knew she was offering.

I pressed more fully into her, careful of her bare feet and small frame. I towered over her, but the way she made me feel-breathless and weak with need ... I wasn't foolish enough to think I was the one with the upper hand in this situation. I had her backed into the door and she had to stretch up on the very tips of her toes to get her arms around my neck. I had to bend down a bit to get our mouths lined up, but even that made the way she bowed and arched to reach for me a tantalizing caress. She was stretched taut all along the front of my body and every dip and curve of her lush little body was there for me to explore and memorize. I liked that she had tempting curves to wrap my hands around everywhere I grabbed her.

I was so used to women that were hard. Hard bodies, hard minds, hard hearts, and unyielding souls. They pinged and bounced off my ever present armor, unaffected and uninterested in the man that lay beneath. Nothing about them ever gave.

But here with this woman, and with my hands full of soft skin and generous curves, I realized that every single part of Avett Walker was giving. I liked that she was soft and pliable against my questing fingers. I liked the way she whimpered into my mouth and moved closer to me. I liked the way her fingers pulled at the short hair on the back of my head, letting me know I wasn't the only one that was greedy and looking to take. And I really f.u.c.king liked the fact that she didn't have a bra on, so that when I breached the hem of her crop top my hand was immediately filled with warm and willing flesh. I liked it so much that I dropped all pretense of keeping this a simple kiss that was going to be over before I started it, and curled my hand around the plump weight until her pert little nipple was stabbing me in the center of my palm.

I wanted to see her. I wanted to know if the velvet point was pretty and rosy like her hair. I wanted it in my mouth. I wanted the little nub rolling across my tongue as she gasped my name. I wanted to get my hands inside those hot-pink panties she had on, and feel if she was as turned on as I was. There was no hiding the way my body was reacting to her. I didn't bother to try. As I kissed her more fully, settled into her so that not an inch of her wasn't covered by me, my throbbing c.o.c.k found a perfect resting place against her stomach. I wanted the rough denim that separated us out of the way so my turgid and overheated flesh could rub against her supple skin.

I never considered myself the kind of guy that had a quick trigger, but her mouth against mine, the heft of her breast in my hand, and the glide of her nipple across my palm, the way she strained to get closer ... I knew if my aroused d.i.c.k got to touch any part of her, there was a pretty good chance that that was all it was going to take for me to get off. I hadn't been that responsive or that reactive to a woman since I started having s.e.x back in high school. The way she panted lightly against my lips, the way she tugged me closer so she could kiss me back. All of it was infinitely more potent than any of the one-night stands I had been wasting my time with as of late.

I grunted as her teeth dug into my bottom lip. A second later, the brush of her tongue was there to soothe the tiny sting. It was wild and it was sweet. Both parts of her that I was dying to experience, both parts that I wanted to capture and wrap myself up in. I shifted the hold I had under her shirt so that I had the pointed peak of her nipple trapped between my fingers. I gave the sensitive tip a firm tug to pay her back for the bite and she gave a little cry of pleasure that made my d.i.c.k ache and had my mouth moving with even more hunger against hers. I wanted to eat her up. I wanted her wild to consume me, to burn and purge all the things that had long since turned sour and stale inside of me. I ached for her sweet to soothe me after we scorched through each other and were left in a heap in our own wreckage, covered in ash and satisfaction. Never had I been so affected or so irrational in my feelings towards another person. She made me forget who I was supposed to be now, and she made me forget the man I had spent a lifetime trying to bury. With her I was someone new, someone that didn't feel fake or forgotten. With my hands on her and my mouth sliding down her neck so I could chase her pounding pulse with the tip of my tongue, I finally felt like a man that was real, a man that existed for more than what he had and what he could do for others.

I swept my thumb over the crest of her nipple again and then pulled my hand out of her shirt. I brushed my knuckles along the ridge of her rib cage, pulling my hand out of the opening of her overalls so that I could tap the little buckle that kept the bib part up with my index finger. My lips were right below the delicate sh.e.l.l of her ear as our chests rapidly rose and fell together.

"How bad of an idea do you want to make this, Avett?" I felt like we were already at the point of no return, that there would be no going back from this now that I knew how good she tasted and how addictive it was to get swept up in the storm that was Hurricane Avett. The rush of her, the urgency in my blood to take as much as I could before this moment was over. I wanted to f.u.c.k her, wanted inside that sweet little body more than I could remember wanting anything in a very long time, but I still had enough of my typical smarts floating around to recognize that this wasn't the time or place to make that happen. I wasn't going to have s.e.x with Avett up against the front door of her father's house, but I was going to have s.e.x with her. After tonight, I knew that was a given. I knew I couldn't not have s.e.x with her.

She blinked up at me and the different colors in her hazel eyes warred with each other as she tried to figure out what the right answer to my very complicated question was. It was a tough call because the right answer meant she had to commit to doing even more of the wrong thing, the wrong thing that just happened to feel more right than anything ever had.

Her hands slid from around the back of my neck where she had been clutching at me to rest on my shoulders. The gold in her eyes gleamed and the brown turned to black as it darkened and swallowed the green. "I usually go all in when I make a bad choice. That's why I fail so spectacularly at life over and over again." Her voice was husky and it hitched a little as I popped the fastening on her overalls open and let one side flop open.

I let out an expletive that sounded harsh and raspy when the fabric fell, revealing most of her torso and the gentle curve of her stomach. She was built the way smart men wanted women to be. She was pretty much perfect all rumpled and shoved up against the door. She was luscious and I really wanted to pull the lacy pink that was keeping the rest of her covered from me and discover all the different kinds of pleasure her body had to offer, all the different kinds of pleasure I was sure I could give her.

I kissed her below her ear and lazily let my fingers trace random patterns on the quivering skin of her stomach.

"This does not feel like failing at life." It felt like winning. It felt like a prize I never even knew I needed to claim as my own, which was strange because my entire life had been nothing more than the pursuit of one reward and one accolade on top of the other. I had chased validation and approval since the first time I realized the other kids and teachers knew I came from nothing and had even less than that. My life had been about proving that it wasn't where you came from that mattered, but where you ended up. I couldn't be happier about where I was right at this very minute, even if it was miles and miles away from where I should be.

I hooked a finger under the top of her underwear and rubbed my knuckle in a long, smooth line between her hip bones. The touch made her jerk against me and had her tilting her pelvis closer to my own. I groaned as my stiff c.o.c.k was pressed even more fully into the hollow of her stomach. She squeezed my shoulders and turned her head so that her mouth was pressed against the tense line of my jaw.

"I thought this was about you taking what I was offering and not you giving. So technically, this is a failure." She let out a very unpracticed and honest-sounding squeak as I dipped my fingers lower and encountered nothing but bare, silken skin. Skin that was hot to the touch and melted into glossy, liquid depths. There was nothing s.e.xier than the sight of that hot-pink lace stretched around my questing hand. There was stretch in the fabric, but not enough that there was a ton of room to move. My fingers were held tight to her most sensitive places and my palm cupped around her like we were made to fit together. It was a pretty pink snare and I had zero desire to escape from it.

I angled my head lower so I could capture her mouth with my own as I let my wandering fingers disappear inside her damp, velvet folds.

"I'm taking your wild and your sweet, Avett. I'm going to know what it feels like against me. I'm going to remember how it tastes and how it moves so that when I'm inside of it, I won't get swept away by it all." A man could get lost inside the storm of feeling and emotion she created and I didn't want to lose my way any more than I already had. Eventually, I was going to have to find my way back to reality, to the life I had spent so much time building.

I used my knee and the leverage I had on her to urge her to spread her legs farther apart so that I could get at all the secret and hidden places that beckoned to me. She complied with a little sigh and arched into my touch. She kept giving me everything I wanted without question, without asking for anything in return, and that kind of openness and generosity went to my head and to my d.i.c.k faster than any practiced seduction ever had.

She was warm and wet. She was slick and slippery as my fingers moved over her and through her. She whimpered every time the pads of my fingers grazed her excited c.l.i.t and she moaned breathy little sounds every time my fingers pumped in and out of her drenched channel. Her eyes drifted closed as she clutched at me, as she lifted back up on the tips of her toes to get closer. She was chasing after the sensations I was creating and it was beautiful to watch.

She ripped her mouth away from the endless plundering of mine, tossing her head back so hard that it hit the door behind her with a thud. I leaned forward so that my forehead was resting on the arm that was still bent over her head, and told myself I could do this. I could get tangled up, wound up in her wild, and go back to my own carefully constructed simulation of a life lived well with the best of everything including very little warmth.

It was a lie.

She felt like life. The way she moved on my thrusting fingers, the way her hands pulled at me, the way her body trickled pleasure and gushed satisfaction, uninhibited and unashamed.

She was real.

She was genuine.

She was truth.

She was all the things I hadn't been in a very long time, and I couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to wring all of it from her body, where I had it pinned and held captive by my own. She said my name on a strangled breath as I used my thumb to press down on her c.l.i.t. The little nub pulsed under my touch and her entire body seemed like it was going to levitate off the ground.

Her eyelids fluttered as she wrenched her eyes open and her tongue danced out to slick across her kiss-plumped lower lip. The wild was there in her eyes as she dared me to keep going, to push her over the edge. The sweet was there, in the way she moved forward to press her lips to the pulse that was hammering at the side of my throat.

She was so close. I could feel her body softening, loosening up around my fingers. I circled her c.l.i.t with hard strokes of my thumb and pushed off the door so I could put my other hand on the side of her face, holding her still while I kissed her and ate up every single part of her coming apart for me. It was the most decadent and delicious thing that had ever crossed my tongue. She tasted like she felt, turned on and ready to explode.

After she broke and quaked in delicate spasms all across my hand, we panted softly into one another as she fell back down to her normal height. She looked up at me with a million different questions I had no answers to shining out of her eyes and let her hands fall from my shoulders to my waist.

She stiffened when her fingertips landed on the hard metal of the gun I had forgotten I hooked there when I rushed out of my loft. I trailed my wet fingers over the curve of her belly and curled them around her ribs. The weapon added even more questions to her bewildered and startled gaze.

"You have a gun." The bottom of my leather jacket had kept the firearm covered up so her surprise at the deadly discovery was justifiable.

I stepped away from her and reached for the flap on her overalls that I had loosened moments ago. I rubbed the pad of my thumb over the flushed arch of her cheek and shifted so that her hands were no longer near the weapon or near me.

"I have a few. I got used to having one on hand when I was in the service. Your good buddy Google told you all about it, remember?"

She huffed out a breath and crossed her arms over her chest. She was still propped up against the door and I took an inordinate amount of pleasure in thinking that she needed the stability that the door provided because I had done an excellent job of making her knees weak.

"Google told me you were in the Army, not that you were going to show up at my house in the middle of the night, armed and riding a motorcycle. Google apparently doesn't know any of the good s.h.i.t. You're full of surprises, aren't you, Counselor?"

I grunted and lifted my hands to push back my hair, which was hopelessly tangled, unkempt from sleep, being shoved in my helmet, and her demanding hands.

"I learned how to load and fire a shotgun before I learned my ABCs. I learned how to hunt about two minutes after I took my first steps. When you said you might be in trouble, my instinct was to grab a weapon on my way out of the loft. The motorcycle spends most of the year in storage, but lately it's been calling to me." I lifted my eyebrows at her. "Something has been hounding me to remember what it's like to let go and be uncivilized occasionally."

She snorted and finally pushed away from the door. My ego practically howled in satisfaction when I noticed she was indeed a little bit wobbly.

"That rocket is as far from uncivilized as any one machine can get. And you are as far from uncivilized as any one man can get, so the idea of you as a toddler in diapers with a shotgun in your hand is pretty hard to imagine." She touched her fingers to her mouth and put a hand flat on her chest. "Exactly who are you, Quaid Jackson?"

I snorted. "n.o.body. I'm n.o.body." And that had been the problem I struggled with all along. That was why I set out to be somebody. Why I had left everything I knew behind and created something that looked so perfect, so desirable, from the outside. I never wanted to be n.o.body again, but with her I also didn't want to be the slick and scheming lawyer, the guy that knew every move I made with her was leading nowhere. I forced myself to grin at her. "Who exactly are you, Avett Walker?"

She laughed and threw her hands out at her sides. "I'm exactly who you think I am-Daddy's girl, college dropout, broke and unemployed, a liar and a petty criminal. I'm the girl that can't make the right choice, even when it's the only choice, and I'm the girl that will fall for the wrong guy every single time. There is nothing surprising about who I am, Quaid, so don't try and spin some kind of pretty tale about the woman you had your hands all over. I'm just me. There is no heart of gold or tender soul hidden here. What you see is what you get, and when you're ready for my story, you'll realize that who I am is someone that deserves every single mess I've managed to make along the way."

That was why I couldn't stay away from her or keep her off of my mind. Her authenticity was addicting and so f.u.c.king invigorating after decades spent not only living in the lie that was my current life, but also the lie that was my previous life, and the major charade that was my marriage.

I smirked at her and lifted my hand to my mouth-the hand that had played with her, touched her, stroked her, the hand that had coaxed a sharp and piercing o.r.g.a.s.m out of her. I licked the side of my thumb and watched the way the action made her eyes bulge huge in her face.

"I like what I see when it comes to you, Avett. I also like what I get and what you give." She made a strangled noise low in her throat and lifted a hand to hold the slender column, like she could prevent the noise from escaping. "And I do want your story, if you want to give it to me. Tell me why you're rushing after the wrong kinds of things, time and time again, when the right kinds of things would die for a shot at getting a taste of all that wild and sweet you have inside of you." By things, I meant men, but she was smart enough to figure that out on her own.

She moved away from me and reached up to put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes darted away from my propping gaze and it took her a few minutes before she spoke. When the words came, they lacked her typical fire and sa.s.s. They sounded strained and forced as she shifted her weight nervously from bare foot to bare foot.

"I was always kind of stubborn and crazy. The more someone told me not to do something, the more I absolutely wanted to do it." She started to pace in front of me as the ragged words escaped her. "When I was little, my folks called me a handful and other grown-ups called me a brat. When I got into my teens, that morphed into me being a bad influence and a troublemaker. I didn't have a lot of friends because I had a wild reputation that I definitely earned, so a lot of girls my age didn't like me and a lot of parents didn't want me to corrupt their kids. I was a party girl, the girl that was always down for a good time, whatever that entailed, and I never cared what anyone thought of me because it was always fun ... until it wasn't." She shot me a look, but when I didn't interrupt or offer any kind of comment, she kept going.

"I did have one friend, this very sweet girl named Autumn, that moved here from Kansas her freshman year. She was quiet, kind of shy, and had a hard time fitting in. Denver was like a major metropolis to her and she was really a small-town girl at heart. I can't remember how we ended up hanging out, but once we did, we clicked instantly and were inseparable all throughout most of high school."

It all sounded pretty typical to me. I mean, my childhood had been anything but basic, anything but normal, so I wasn't an expert by any means, but what she was telling me sounded pretty much like every teenage girl's trials and tribulations of growing up and growing into themselves. I didn't want to stem the flow of words pouring out of her so I kept my mouth shut as she continued to give me her story.

"I liked to party, and I liked boys. I liked to act older than I was, and had no problem taking the risks that went along with that. Because Autumn was a good friend, and because I was her only friend, she often found herself in situations and surrounded by people she was really uncomfortable with. She didn't want to tell me no because she was afraid I was going to ditch her if she didn't partic.i.p.ate. I think she was afraid I would find a new best friend to spend time with if she wasn't right by my side. I was selfish. I was thoughtless. I never once asked her if she was okay with what was going on when we went out and partied. I a.s.sumed that because she showed up, she understood the unspoken rules and regulations the way I did."

I c.o.c.ked my head at her and considered her thoughtfully for a long moment. "Do you even understand the rules and regulations now, Avett?" It seemed like a fair question, considering how we had met.

She gurgled out something that may have been a laugh but sounded more like she was choking. She shook her head from side to side and put her hands up on her pale cheeks. "Oh, I understand, but I never seemed to get that breaking the rules might affect someone else and leave me completely unscathed." She made a fist and thumped it against her chest. "I'm the only one that should be hurt when I decide to do something risky and wrong, but it never works that way. Never."

I reached out and put my hands on her shoulders to still her frantic movements and locked my gaze on hers. "So your friend got hurt because she followed you into the lion's den, unprotected, unprepared, and something bad happened to her?" I c.o.c.ked a knowing eyebrow. "And you feel guilty about what happened, so you've been punishing yourself by making s.h.i.tty choices ever since."

She gulped audibly and lifted her hands so that she could curl her fingers around my wrists. I wondered if she felt my pulse kick when she softly told me, "She didn't get hurt. It wasn't just bad-it was the worst thing that could happen to someone. She died. I killed her."

I had heard a lot of confessions and a lot of denials in my career, but none of them tugged at my heart and kicked me in the gut like this one did.

"What are you talking about, Avett?" My words were sharper than they needed to be, but I wasn't prepared for that kind of confession out of her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and I watched as her lower lip started to tremble, making her words shaky and hard to follow, but I was good at tearstained admissions, so I had no trouble following along.

"We were at a party, a party in a part of town we had no business being in. I went because some college guy asked me to go and because my mom grounded me for the weekend for failing a test. It was a total 'screw you' and what I thought was normal teenaged rebellion. It was definitely on par with my typical activities on the weekend, but it quickly turned into something else. That night turned into my story, a story I can barely get through because it should be Autumn's story. I feel so guilty that I'm around to tell it and she's not."

She opened her eyes and I could see the horror and tragedy of whatever happened that night clear as day reflected in the gla.s.sy sheen covering her turbulent gaze. There was a different storm raging inside of her, and this kind was destructive and hurtful.

"I told her not to take a drink from anyone. I told her not to be alone with anyone, that we needed to stick together. I told her that these guys were older, that she needed to be careful, and keep her wits about her because no one even knew where we were. I thought that was enough. I thought I was taking care of her. It wasn't enough. Not even close." She barked out a sharp laugh and let her head fall forward like she was hanging from a broken marionette string. Unable to resist the urge, I pulled her into my chest and silently urged her to get the rest of the story out, to let that storm howl and rage until it pa.s.sed.

"She started smoking pot as soon as we got in the door. She was high, had too much to drink, and before I knew it she had disappeared somewhere in the house with a couple of the guys at the party. Her drink was drugged and when I finally found her, she was naked, pa.s.sed out, and there was no doubt that she had been raped. I wanted to call the police and an ambulance. I needed help, but the guy that invited me to the party took my phone and told me there was no way I was going to narc on his friends. I was so mad and I was terrified for Autumn. She was out of it, but I knew when she woke up, she was going to be in a bad way. She wasn't a party girl, she wasn't like me." Avett hiccupped on a strangled little sob and I felt her hands fist into the sides of my T-shirt as she started to shake. "I took a swing at the guy, never once thinking that he would swing back. He clobbered me. I remember being stunned at how badly it hurt, and I can still summon up how it tasted when my own blood was filling my mouth. I'd never been hit before, and even with the way I liked to go b.a.l.l.s to the wall, I'd never felt unsafe until that moment. I couldn't protect my friend, and I couldn't protect myself."

I tightened my hold on her, imagining what kind of animal could possibly attack her when she was so small and vulnerable. It made me feel all kinds of defensive and territorial.

"The guy told me to keep my mouth shut or I would end up just like Autumn and then he hit me again. At some point, Autumn started to come around and puked all over the room they had her in. She was disoriented, scared, and getting sick every few minutes. I thought she was going to die right then and there."

She took a shuddering breath and tilted her head back so she could look at me. "She begged me to get her out of there, to take her home. I tried to tell her that we needed to go to the police, that we had to have a doctor look her over, but she kept crying and telling me that after everything she had done for me, I had to do this for her. She wanted to go home, so against my better judgment I helped her up and out of the house, and took her home. The only reason the guy that took my phone let us go was because it was obvious how scared she was. He knew she wasn't going to talk and he knew I had a pretty terrible reputation, so if I tried to cause trouble it would get shut down pretty easily."

Her next words were bit out and full of so much self-loathing and disgust that I had no problem figuring out why this young woman thought she deserved the worst the world had to offer her. "I did nothing. My best friend, my only real friend, was violated, drugged, taken advantage of at a party I made her go to, and I did nothing to make that right."

She pulled away from me and started pacing in a tight pattern again. "I bugged her for a few days to report the attack, but she kept shutting me down. I told her she needed to talk to someone, to tell her parents what happened at the very least. She pretended to listen, pretended like everything was okay, but she started to drift away. She wouldn't take my calls. She wouldn't look at me in the hallway. She wouldn't sit next to me in the cla.s.ses we shared. She acted like I didn't exist anymore and what was even scarier is she acted like she didn't exist anymore. She was so withdrawn and remote it was like she wasn't even there. I knew we had no business being at that party and I had no business leaving her to fend for herself once we were there. I knew it wasn't her scene. What happened to her was my fault because she wouldn't have been there if I hadn't been there, if I hadn't been so h.e.l.l-bent on doing whatever the f.u.c.k I wanted to do, so I figured the best thing I could do was let her hate me. It was pretty easy to do, since I was busy hating myself. I was miserable and I figured she had to feel a million times worse because after a few weeks I heard a rumor that she was pregnant."

She put a hand to her chest and bent over at the waist like she was having trouble breathing. She shifted so that her hands were on her knees and she was looking at the floor between her feet.

"I confronted her, asked her about the baby, and when she admitted that she was a couple months along, I told her that she had to tell her parents what had happened. I knew she couldn't go through a pregnancy alone and she had completely shut me out. She told me she didn't plan on keeping the baby, that no one was ever going to know what she had been through. She never once said it was my fault, but I knew. I knew, deep down, that it should've been me. I should've been the one going through what she was going through. I was the one that liked to party. I was the one that liked boys that were no good. I was the one that should be suffering and that should have no future, not her." She sucked in a wheezing breath and righted herself.

I could see the fact that Avett believed the punishment she had a.s.signed herself for a crime she didn't commit was justified, that she honestly believed her story started and ended with what happened to her friend and her inability to do anything about it the night it happened and the carnage afterwards. That was a heavy burden for any soul to bear and was definitely too much weight for a young and wild soul to stand up under.

"That weekend, Autumn's mom called the house and told my mom that she found her daughter hanging from the rod in the closet. Autumn committed suicide. She didn't leave a note, so I was the only person that knew why. I went to the funeral, I watched her parents sob as they lowered her into the ground, and all I could think was, once again, I had done nothing. I hadn't told anyone. Maybe if I had, she would still be here to tell her story. For a minute, I even thought that it should be me in the ground, but I knew there was no way I could ever do that to my parents. I made them suffer enough because I spent every single waking hour trying to." She shrugged helplessly. "I guess I was trying to even the score. I went from being a girl that liked a party and a good time, to being a girl that was on the verge of destruction. I purposely found boys that were no good, instead of stumbling onto them like I had before. I started drinking a lot more, dabbled in drugs here and there, but quickly found out that wasn't something I enjoyed. I wanted to hurt, to feel the pain I knew Autumn went through, and drugs made me numb and made me forget. I stopped pretending to even kind of try in school, and stopped trying with my mom. Before that night I was wild, after that night I was out of control. I wanted to hurt in all the ways I could hurt, but it was never enough. I could never make up for what happened to her, what she lost. Eventually, I went to her parents and told them what happened. I told them about the party and the attack. I told them about the baby."

She lifted a hand to her face and pressed tightly into her temples. "I thought it would help them find closure, that they would have some solace in understanding that Autumn felt trapped." A tear leaked, finally escaped whatever invisible force field that had been holding them back as she spoke. It clung to her dark lashes and then dropped, falling silently, until it disappeared under the curve of her chin. "They told me what I had known from the night it happened. Her mom told me that it was my fault, that it should have been me. Their daughter was a good girl, a sweet kid, until she hooked up with me. I ruined her and then I killed her. They told me I was the one that should be dead, not their daughter. I deserved to suffer every ounce of pain that was filling me up for putting Autumn in that situation in the first place. I couldn't even bring myself to tell my parents what had really happened. They knew Autumn was gone, knew that I felt responsible, but they were already so disappointed in the choices I was making, choices that were so much worse than the ones I had been making before. I couldn't bear the thought of them looking at me like Autumn's parents did. If they blamed me as well, how could I live with myself? I was used to their disappointment but I knew I couldn't survive their disgust."

She swiped at the damp trail the tear had left on her face and returned her tortured gaze to mine. "So I did nothing and it killed my best friend. That's my story and her story, the entire ugly truth of it, Counselor." Her breath shuddered out of her and her watery eyes locked on mine. "Do you still like what you see and what you get when it comes to me, Quaid?"

Her self-loathing was evident, and so was the guilt and responsibility over the tragic event that was hanging around her neck like a leaden anchor.

I walked towards her until I had her backed into the door once again. I put my hands on either side of her face and tilted her head back so that she was looking up at me with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"I've been a defense attorney for a few years now, and if there is one thing that all my clients, whether they're innocent or guilty, have in common it's blame. It's always someone else's fault and it's always someone else's responsibility that they're in the situation they're in. No one wants to be accountable for the choices they made that led to them needing a defense in the first place. All of my clients are like that, except for you, Avett. You own your choices, you take the responsibility, and you don't make excuses for your behavior. What happened to your friend is horrific, and no young woman should ever have to go through that, especially alone, but she made the choice to go with you. She made the choice to take that drink. She made the choice to not say anything to people that could help. Did you force her to go with you that night?" She slowly shook her head in between my hands. "Did you tell her that your friendship was over if she didn't go with you?" Again with a negative response. "Did you do anything different that night than you did any other night the two of you went somewhere you probably shouldn't have been?"

This time she breathed out a soft, "No."

"Then you need to realize that what happened wasn't your fault. Was it awful and avoidable, yes, but the only people to blame are the men that attacked your friend. I don't care if both of you walked into that house naked and ready to party. Consent has to be given and those boys took the option to say yes or no away from her. They are at fault. Not you and certainly not her." I narrowed my eyes as I thought about how devastating that conversation with the other girl's parents must have been for her. "Her parents were looking for someone to hand the blame off onto because they were hurting and looking for a target to land that pain on. No parent wants to think they failed their child, that they may have missed the clues that their kid was hurting and in trouble and that they may have been able to do something to help them. It makes them feel inadequate as well as heartbroken. I see it every day in court when parents are in disbelief that their baby is capable of hurting someone else or themselves so they look for any other reasonable explanation as to how things could go so horribly wrong. It's gotta be someone else's fault. You painted a bright red bull's-eye on yourself and they fired at will."

I bent my head and kissed her softly, comfortingly. I rubbed my lips across her still-swollen ones and let my tongue trace the cute little dip in her top lip. She needed someone to take care with her, and while I didn't think I had any care in me left to give, I was surprising the both of us by doling it out like it was in endless supply.

"Your story doesn't change how I see you, Avett, but it does change how tolerant I'm going to be with your bad decision making because, sadly, your story is one that belongs to a lot of young women. Some even have the same tragic ending as your friend. Your story and her story are not singular and it kills me to tell you that I see similar stories with similar outcomes pa.s.s in and out of court all the time. Those stories all have one thing in common-guilt and blame, too often placed on the incorrect person. There is no need for you to be looking for some kind of cosmic punishment-you didn't do anything wrong."

At least, she hadn't that night. Doing nothing wasn't the right choice for either of the girls to make, but sadly, it was the choice too many young women that were victimized made when they found themselves in that situation. Too often the responsibility was taken on by the victim, instead of staying placed on the attacker where it belonged, and that blame did horrific things, like make her friend feel like there was no way out of everything she was suffering through besides ending her own life, and it clearly led Avett to believe she was the one responsible for the actions of those depraved and damaged boys.

She didn't respond, so I pushed back from the door once again and decided it was time for me to go. I had no more wisdom or guidance left to impart on her tonight. Plus, I needed a few minutes to myself to fully comprehend how complicated and deep the waters that ran inside this complex young women were. She fascinated me and captured my attention in a way that was alarming. I'd been focused on work and on moving on from my disastrous marriage so single-mindedly that to have all of that suddenly sidelined by an intriguing pink-haired temptress was enough to give a man whiplash.

"I'm going to see about the patrol unit, but you need to call your dad so that you aren't here the rest of the night alone."

She balked immediately at the order and took a step towards me. "I told you, I didn't want to pull him away from my mom."

I knew that was going to be her answer, so I shook my head before she got all of the words out.