Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Oh dear.
“I only say that because it needs to be said,” he went on. “This shite is not going to happen to us again. I take full responsibility for fucking that up, and I earned your response. I’ll never fuck up that huge again, but I can’t promise never to fuck up, and you can’t either. But if we get into it, I need you not to shut me out so we can work it out.”
This was needed advice for us to have a healthy relationship, so I nodded.
He again didn’t hide his relief from me.
God, I knew honesty and candor was hard on some occasions, but even if it was, it worked a whole lot better than the other way around.
“When we were on the train, and you asked me if you needed to make it official, ye didnae mean spending more time in the UK. You meant being with me.”
How he’d misinterpreted that at the time hurt in a way I didn’t want to remember it, because I’d already sensed he was pulling away, but since he brought it up, I couldn’t stop myself from sucking in both my lips.
Not that he would, considering he was only maybe twelve inches away, but Dair didn’t miss it.
“Christ, I fucked this,” he muttered.
“We’re working it out,” I reminded him.
“Aye, but just to say, we’re flying to Dublin, then to Edinburgh, and then collecting my dog and coming back here if ye need to be here. Because I dinnae mistake ye now, lassie. And we’re making it official.”
“I think, before I agree, I should know precisely what that means,” I said carefully.
“What you meant it to mean at the time. We’re doing this. I’m with you, you’re with me. Always.”
Oh boy.
“Do you think we’re going too fast?”
“Did you drive away from me with tears in your eyes and hurt I put in your heart and spend five days not sleeping or eating?”
I did.
“I ate.” That wasn’t a lie. I just didn’t eat very much.
“Babe,” he growled.
“No one saw me,” I blurted.
His head ticked. “Sorry?”
“No one saw me. That’s why I sold the pictures. All my life, I felt like I’d gone unseen.”
“Baby.” Now he was whispering.
I sucked it up and carried on.
“After I narrowly missed living a wretched life with a man like Chad, the man my mother wanted for me, I took a long, hard look at myself. How I behaved. How I treated people. What I’d done. Who I was becoming. And I realized that was why I did it. I didn’t care if the attention was negative. I just wanted people to see me.”
“Ye dinnae have to explain this to me.”
“I know. But sharing it with you is like explaining it to myself. And I do need to do that.”
He nodded, and his hand was still at my ribs, so his thumb started stroking.
And at his nod, his touch, it struck me, he was listening.
Really listening.
And he saw me.
Before our blip last weekend, he was the first one in my life who really saw me.
And that strike was like a bolt of lightning, because I felt safe here with Dair, telling him these things, unlike how I felt my whole life, including when he laid me out in his living room.
But I was safe now.
With him.
And now that we were beyond that blip, with all he said while I was lying on those wet leaves, I knew I’d always be safe.
With Dair.
So I kept going.
“That’s why I acted out too. But it was more. It was a way to hold people back. If I was a bitch, if I was difficult, if I wasn’t so much fun to be around, I could insulate myself.”
“Insulate yourself from what, darling?” he asked.
“From love,” I answered. “Because what I knew of it, love hurt a lot, and what I didn’t realize, but how I was acting, was that I didn’t want any part of it.”
He closed his eyes, dropping into me, growling unintelligibly, and his forehead came to rest on mine.
Good Lord, this man, this glorious, glorious man really, really loved me.
“And then came you,” I told him.
That caused him to groan and shift his head so he was kissing me.
It was unlike any kiss Dair had ever given me.
It was wet and it was deep, but it was also soft and sweet.
When he ended it, his hand came to my neck and his thumb stroked my throat.
Oh yes.
We’d had our blip.
And now I was totally safe with this man.
“Can we put the last few days behind us, learn from it, and move on from here?” I requested.
“Aye, lass, with an emphasis on learning from it, that learning being me looking after you a whole lot better.”
I wasn’t liking his commitment to punishing himself about this.
“Dair, you have to let it go. It happened. Did you handle it well? Maybe not. Was it going to happen one way or another as we got to know each other? Probably. So we did it. It hurt. It didn’t go great. It’s done. I’m going to Dublin with you and then having dinner with your mum, and if you’ll let me move, I can have everything sorted here so we can stay up in Edinburgh for a while.”