Obediently, I opened my mouth and she peered inside at the little ball that sat dead centre on my tongue. ‘Oh … Oh, God …’ She licked that sweet lower lip as her eyes shifted to mine. ‘Is it true, what they say about that?’
A corner of my mouth tipped up on one side and one brow rose. ‘I guess we’ll find out tonight, won’t we?’ I kissed her again, my tongue delving fully into her mouth. She moaned – an impatient, breathy entreaty. Breaking the kiss, my hand curled round her nape and I whispered into her ear. ‘So tell me, how long does that bad-boy phase thing last? Because I’m trying my best to prolong it.’
She sucked in a breath and tucked her face to my shoulder. ‘Oh, God. I can’t believe you know about that.’
I tipped her chin up. Her face was pink.
‘How am I doing, Jacqueline? Fulfilling your every bad-boy wish, or is there something I’ve overlooked? I may have a steady job and be madly, deeply in love with my girlfriend …’ I kissed her as she clung to me. ‘But I have a wicked imagination.’
There used to be a point in time separating before from after. On one side lay everything good and beautiful – a dream that couldn’t be touched in waking moments. Memories of my mother were trapped there, and I fought to forget them because they did nothing but hurt and condemn. The opposite side was struggle. Endurance. My after was raw reality, and there was nothing to do but survive it.
Then came Jacqueline. This love. This healing. This new reality where before and after were no longer divided by a solitary rift. Where every moment was a tangible memory and a promise of what was to come. Every moment was a before and an after. Every moment was a now to be lived – and I would savour every one, beginning this second, with the girl in my arms.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the readers who wrote to me after reading Easy. Your stories were heartbreaking, inspiring, rage-inducing and empowering. Thanks to those who told me they’d signed up for self-defence classes, sought counselling or passed the book to a friend, a daughter, a sister or a niece. Hugs to every single one of you.
Thank you, Kim, sister of my heart, for being my Erin.
Thank you to my grandfather, my dad and my brother for being the kind of men who stand up for, respect, protect and defend the women in their lives. You taught me, every day of my life, what a man should be, and how he should treat me. Because of you, I didn’t settle for less.
Thank you, Paul, my amazing husband, for being one of those men. Your love and support are everything to me, and I couldn’t do this without you.
Love to my parents and parents-in-law. I’m blessed and grateful to have each of you in my life.
Thank you to my brilliant critique partners and beta-readers: Colleen Hoover, Tracey Garvis Graves, Elizabeth Reyes, Robin Deeslie and Hannah Webber, as well as my editor, Cindy Hwang. Your suggestions and input were critical to bringing Lucas to life in these pages and doing his story justice.
Special thanks to my agents, Jane Dystel and Lauren Abramo, who’ve dispensed essential guidance and kept me sane as I navigate this still-new career. I appreciate you both so much.
Finally, here’s to everyone who has survived something devastating – something that shattered your self-confidence and distorted your world in one blow. Whether you were fierce in the face of it or fell to pieces or shoved it out of sight for years – I don’t care how you got here. Every day you are stronger. Every day you are healing. Every day that you survive, you are telling that event, that person, that illness, that memory: YOU DO NOT DEFINE ME. Keep on.