Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“You’re going to stay here?” I asked, surprised to feel a tightness in my throat.
“I’m going to stay,” he said, the green in his eyes clearer than ever as I turned to look at his face. “I’m going to complain about the heat. I’m going to be baffled at how nice everyone is in town. And I’m going to watch over you like a fucking hawk until I’m damn sure there’s no more online stalkers coming your way. But yes. I’m going to be here.”
I felt the sting of tears at the corners of my eyes, but I’d cried enough in the last few days for a lifetime.
Instead, I leaned over, pressing my lips to Draven’s.
“Fuck, I love you,” I whispered. “I’m still so mad at you. How could you do that? How could you let yourself get stabbed for me? And you’re going to be here—you don’t even like the old Marsden house.”
“I love that house,” he protested. “I’m making it my own. Just like a lot of other things around here.”
He squeezed my arm.
“You think Veil and Jasper will like it here?”
“They’ll get used to it. Just like I did,” he said. “Going to get bigger stalls put in on the property as soon as humanly possible, too. Kiss me again.”
I moved in to kiss him and he held me close, pressing his lips to mine softly.
After the night when he’d finally kissed me—when he’d told me that he was falling in love with me, which I still couldn’t even fathom—Draven had been different.
He always seemed to want to hold hands. He wasn’t just affectionate. It was like a switch had flipped inside him and now he was desperate for my touch, anytime he could get it. Needy, almost, like a dam had broken inside him and he wasn’t holding anything back.
“I would say that Bestens doesn’t know what’s about to hit it, but… Bestens is already plenty acquainted with you,” I said.
“They know me, and they love me,” Draven said with a smile. “You were the only one who wanted to kill me.”
“I didn’t know you yet.”
“And I liked every last bit of your attitude,” he said. “You know I’m still going to demand you choke me sometimes. Still going to ask you to smack me, to bruise me, to give me that feisty look you’re giving me right about now.”
“I’m not doing any of that ‘til you’re fully healed,” I told him.
“True love.”
I pulled in a long breath, looking all around my barn. “The first night I met you, if you’d told me that I would fall in love with you, I would have laughed you out of the room.”
He hummed, squeezing my hand. “I always liked you.”
“You thought I was naive.”
“Still do, kind of,” he said. “And I like that, too.”
“I’m not so naive anymore. I’ve been on a plane. I’ve been to Montana. I’ve watched a person I love get fucking stabbed, because he’s stubborn and won’t just call the police like a normal person.”
“You already knew the important stuff.”
“And what’s that?”
He ran his fingertips along my arm, and I watched the rose tattoo on his forearm as he moved up and down slowly.
“You knew how to love,” he said. “How to be human. How to talk, how to be true to yourself. How to fuck.”
I groaned. “You’re the one teaching me how to get fucked.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a natural.”
He brought my hand up to his lips, kissing the back of it. “You’re mine now. If you want to be.”
I swallowed, focused on his eyelashes, thick and dark.
How gorgeous he was.
How masculine, and handsome, and perfect he was, scars and all.
“I really want to be, Draven,” I whispered. “I couldn’t stop being yours if I tried.”
Epilogue
DRAVEN, THREE MONTHS LATER
Sometimes it seems like a rose will never bloom.
You watch it, for what feels like forever, willing the green bud to burst open, waiting for the flower to unfurl.
It doesn’t.
It won’t listen to your wishes, or your quiet, subtle urging, as you walk past another time, finding each stem still dotted with green bulbs.
And then you stop trying so hard. Stop trying to rush it. You forget, a little, and carry on with other things.
By the time you turn around next, it’s there: small, soft, dusty-red petals, the green coverings opened wide, letting the new buds emerge.
Then, it’s like a mad rush.
Each bloom, spilling out, the petals fragrant and intoxicating and so much reddish-pink, all there for you, because you were patient.
Walking into the Hard Spot with Max by my side tended to feel like that, every time. When had everything in my life become so rewarding? So much bounty, of friends and happiness and the man I loved more than I ever knew I was capable of loving.
Everything in bloom, no matter the season.
Tonight was no exception. I walked up to the Hard Spot with Max, marveling at how goddamn good he looked.