Her words meant he gave her another squeeze and he did it lifting his head to touch his mouth to hers, to show her just how much they meant.
Her eyes were softer when he dropped his head back to the pillow.
She knew what her words meant.
“Until just now, you haven’t mentioned your mother,” he remarked.
The grin left her face entirely.
Not a good sign.
He gave her yet another squeeze. “Lilah?”
“Mom and I aren’t tight. She…” She shook her head. “She and Dad didn’t get along and neither of them hid that from me, but she was bitter about it and she really didn’t hide that from me, even knowing I totally adored him.” She bit her lip, pausing before she carried on, “She also knew about the thing, that thing we share, that feeling of missing something. She thought I was crazy.”
His brows drew together. “Crazy?”
“Bona fide take-me-to-three-shrinks crazy.” She’d lifted up three fingers but dropped them when she finished, “I was in therapy for four years.”
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “She also tried to have me medicated.”
Her breath blew into his face in a whoosh when his arms contracted at her words.
He forced himself to loosen his hold, but his voice was dangerous when he asked, “Medicate you?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed hesitantly. “She was convinced I had an eating disorder and other mental disorders besides.” She curled her hand at his neck, her thumb sliding along the column of his throat in order to soothe him as she assured him quietly, “Dad stopped that part of my therapy before it ever happened, baby. I never was on meds. He totally got what was happening to me. I mean, not totally, but he didn’t think I was crazy. Just missing something I’d eventually find.”
Abel was beginning to understand her bond with her father.
“So you grew up with her and him?” Abel asked, and Delilah nodded.
“Yep. They had joint custody at first. But when Mom started the whole ‘you’re whacked in the head’ thing, Dad stepped in. He was never a fan of having me only half the time. But when that happened, he fought for full custody. Even got a real job to pay for it.”
Yes, he was beginning to understand their bond.
“I moved in with him when I was fifteen,” she shared. “But I’d pretty much checked out on Mom way before then. If I wasn’t at Dad’s house for his week, I was with my friends. Mom and me never really recovered from that even though I didn’t cut her out. I just keep…” Her head tipped to the side as she thought how to finish, then said, “Distant.”
Abel said nothing, mostly because he didn’t want to say what he had to say. That being that a mother not attempting to understand her daughter, instead sending her to others who would force asinine theories (he’d been with her for days and his woman had no eating disorder and certainly no mental ones) and unnecessary medications on her, was no mother at all.
She must have read this in his expression because she defended her mother by stating, “It isn’t like what I felt was normal, Abel.”
“Your dad seemed to get it,” he pointed out.
“Dad loves me,” she replied.
“As should your mother,” he returned firmly. “No conditions, Delilah. I know. I turned from a puppy into a human who tried to sink my fangs in her flesh, and still had a mother who took me on, loved me, and accepted me, no conditions. In fact, I had two.”
“I see your point,” she muttered.
He was glad because he had another one to make which was almost as important.
“For your safety and everyone else’s, she does not know about me or about us. When you start to break ties down there, she doesn’t get the story and you share it with others in a way it won’t get back to her.”
“Okay, honey,” she agreed.
Abel fell silent.
“Uh…speaking about that,” Delilah started, “for everyone else’s sake, what are we doing?”
“What are we doing?”
“About taking off,” she clarified.
Abel drew in breath and let it out, noting, “Their reaction was violent.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Even more than I expected it to be.”
“Yes again.”
“And I haven’t even mentioned it to Jian-Li.”
Delilah made no response. She just pressed her lips together and widened her eyes, giving her unspoken opinion that Jian-Li’s reaction would be what it was going to be—that being even more volatile than the rest—and his mate didn’t even know Jian-Li very well
“Your father will follow us, his boys with him,” he stated.
She kept stroking his throat. “He will, Abel. To be honest, I thought he’d give in. When he didn’t, I was surprised. But even if I didn’t guess his response, I know one thing for certain about my dad…when he digs in, he digs in.”
Abel had that impression about Hooker Johnson too.
Not to mention his crew.
Abel looked from her to the ceiling, muttering, “Fuck.”
Delilah said nothing, and when this lasted for some time as he contemplated the ceiling, it occurred to him there was something about that he liked.
They were talking about something, it was important to both of them, it weighed heavy on their minds, and even as she lay atop him, when he needed a moment in his head, she gave it to him.
He’d met many women in his life, not all he fucked, obviously, but both varieties, this trait was rare. Especially if what was being discussed was something important and she might have her point to drive home.