Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 108988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
I groaned, sinking my whole weight against him. He was so earnest and being nice and looking so good, and my resistance crumbled. “You suck. You know that?”
“You’ll tell me the next time someone hurts you?”
I straightened away from him.
“Eight?”
“I don’t like that you were hurt and you didn’t tell me. I can guess the reason you held back, but, Blake, I want to know.” He tipped my head up to meet him. “I am working on the compromise between us, but you are everything to me. Knowing you were hurting and never told me, that destroys me.”
He was being so serious right now.
My heart almost couldn’t take it.
Tears welled up. I confessed, “I don’t understand why you love me so much.”
He went still.
I couldn’t look at him. “You did everything for me, and I just don’t get it. I’m not worth it—”
He growled, low and savagely from the bottom of his throat. “Don’t even fucking finish that statement.”
Pressing my forehead to his chest, I whispered the next words because I needed to get them out of me. I just had to. They wrung themselves from my throat. “Somedays I feel like I’m no one. Then I look at you and I know that I’m everything to you, and I . . . I still don’t understand it. There’s a level of responsibility I need to take for what you’ve done because of me, but then I stop and think about what you would say to that. What you have said to me. I know you said that only you’re responsible for your actions. And I get that. I do, but it’s hard to feel it. You know? Then there’s the whole other layer underneath it all, that you have conquered cities for me, and I—” The words caught in my chest. Alongside the love, the pain, and the disbelief. “I don’t deserve it.”
I tipped my head to look at him. His eyes were so black, but there was emotion reflecting back at me. Real emotion. Pain. Love.
My heart surged. “Creighton?”
He blinked. The emotions were still there, but they were less heated. “I know it’ll take you a while to accept that you’re worth everything. I know that, but it’s the other way around, Blake. I’m not worth feeling that love for you, but I do, and the way I see it, as long as you’re willing to let me love you, I’m going to show it. And you are wrong. You are worth every life I’ve taken. You are worth every life I’ve saved. I love you. Please start accepting that.”
I pressed my lips to his. “I will. I’ll start accepting it.”
“Promise?”
I nodded. “Promise.”
Some of his tension left him. He slid a hand up my back, to the back of my neck, and into my hair, where he cupped my head. He tilted my head back so he could meet my eyes better. “I’ve not asked about your talk with Walden tonight. I’m growing. See. You’re having a marked effect on me. That should make you smile.” He waited, so serious.
I smiled, feeling raw.
His thumb touched the corner of my mouth. “There it is. I like seeing it.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You’re really not going to ask?”
He shook his head and leaned in again. “Nope. You didn’t kill him, so I won’t be going to war again so soon. But besides your smile, you know what else I love about you?” He dropped his forehead to rest against mine. “I love when you’re naked.”
A heated shiver went down my spine. “Have I told you recently that I love you?”
“You have, but you can say it again. I like hearing it.”
I reached up on my tiptoes for him and pulled his head down to meet me. “Well, I do.”
He evaded my lips. “I want you to say it.”
I was a girl on a mission, so I ignored him and latched my mouth to his.
He sighed against my mouth, “I love you, my little Quokka.”
“Yeah, yeah. I love you too, my psychopathic wolverine.”