Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
I know I’d figured it out already. That that’s what he wanted to do. That’s why he came after me, because he wanted to be close to me. Because even though he was fake-engaged to his girlfriend, he was still obsessed with me. I was the other girl and he wanted to make a connection. But him saying that, acknowledging that, makes me so happy, and also makes me want to burst into tears. Because only he would do something like this. Make me feel so much I don’t know what to do with myself.
“But I didn’t know how,” he goes on, breaking my thoughts. ‘I haven’t been very good at saying sorry. So I kept licking my boot. Because I had to find some way to apologize,” he tells me, regret slashing and chiseling his features into hard points. “Some way to soothe the hurt I caused. Because the thing is, baby”—he leans closer—“that one way or another, I keep hurting you, don’t I? I keep doing fucked up things to hurt you.”
Still cupping his jaw, I go up on my tiptoes. “Then, stop. Stop hurting me.”
His jaw goes back and forth under my palm as he rasps, “I don’t know how.”
“Just talk to me,” I insist. “Tell me how you feel instead of shutting down and disappearing. Just—”
He shakes his head. “I’m not good at that.”
“But—”
“It’s not even about that,” he cuts me off. “See, I thought about it on the way over.”
“Thought about what?”
“I have this thing,” he says, with clenched teeth, “inside of me. This crazy fucking thing that won’t let me stay away from you. It makes me obsessed with you. It makes me need you in a way I’ve never needed anyone. It makes me break out in sweat every time I think you’ll leave me. That you’ll realize how toxic I really am and you’ll run. This thing inside of me, Jupiter, won’t let me do the right thing and leave you alone. It makes me a wrecking ball for you and… I’m so afraid that it will only hurt you. I’m so fucking afraid now that you’re really mine, you’ve let me in, I’m only going to hurt you more. More than I did the night I took your virginity, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt you, baby, but I also don’t know how to stay away from you.”
“Are you saying you can’t love me?” I ask, point blank.
He flinches at my question. Like I smacked him in the face. It’s not even that, actually. Because I have smacked him in the face, and he never gave me that reaction. This is more like a stab in the back. A knife he didn’t see coming, so he couldn’t contain his shock.
Then, swallowing and gulping, he shakes his head. “Not again.”
So this is it, then. He’s afraid he can’t give me what I want. He’s afraid that since his heart is already taken and broken, he’ll end up breaking my heart. God, he’s so…
He’s an idiot. But he’s also the most adorable man I’ve ever met. I said he was made of love and loyalty, didn’t I? And I was right. This is love and loyalty. Not that kind of love, but definitely that kind of loyalty. What he doesn’t know and probably will never know is that that ship has already sailed. I fell in love with the idea of him a long time ago and only fell deeper when I met the flawed man
I’m not afraid of getting hurt or burnt or stung. What I’m afraid of is not getting to feel his bite, his teeth sinking into my neck, my heart, my soul. Not getting to drink his poison and sweeten his blood. I’m afraid of not getting to be with him even if for a little while.
I press my hands on his cheeks and stretch my legs up as high as they will take me. “If you ignore my calls or texts or disappear on me again, I will seriously be so very pissed that no amount of apologies or flowers will ever be enough.” Surprise passes through his features before something like satisfaction takes its place, but I keep going. “And I’m not afraid of you. I never was and I never will be.”
He stares into my eyes for a few seconds like he doesn’t ever want to look away, like I’m the most fantastical thing he’s ever seen, before his mouth comes down and he takes my lips in a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Five
This kiss is just as all-consuming as our first one was.
My control still disappears the moment he makes contact, and his was never in the picture to begin with. So we’re all bruising lips and clacking teeth. He pulls at my hair to stretch my neck back, and I tug at his t-shirt to pull him down on me even more. He hauls me up off the floor and I wrap my thighs around his waist as we eat at each other’s mouths. As we kiss and bite and moan and taste each other. He, as always, tastes like strawberries, and even though I know I don’t, he still thinks I do. His mouth is hot and wet and so possessive that I melt and I think mine is the same, only so easily bent to his will that he grows harder.