Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
That wasn’t at all where I thought this conversation was going. “The fuck?” I reached for my phone, but Adrian caught my hand and held it.
“Stop. What are you going to say to her? She’s a kid, Maddox.”
I clenched my jaw. “A kid who shouldn’t be playing with things she doesn’t understand.”
His thumb brushed across the top of my hand painfully lightly before he let go and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “She doesn’t want you to be alone. She cares about you.”
My face heated with embarrassment. “I’m fine. Why does everyone think being alone is a bad thing?”
Adrian looked out the window on his side as we passed snowy fields and the ever-darkening sky. After a while, he murmured, “It gets old, don’t you think?”
I glanced at him in surprise. “And you would know? I’ve seen your social media. You’re never alone.”
His lips tipped up in a hollow smile, but he kept his gaze trained out the window. “Social media tells a story, Maddox. Paints a pretty picture. A fantasy. Isn’t that what you keep trying to tell me?”
I stared at him so hard he must’ve felt the heat of it because he turned toward me, his smile so obviously fake it made my stomach twist. “Nate must be a hell of a fuck, huh?” His smile faded. “He didn’t just tell me about Maya’s call when he pulled me aside. He mentioned you two had history.”
Instead of continuing the drive to my place in town, I turned down the long, winding road leading to Adrian’s rental cabin.
“What are you doing?” he asked, looking around at the vast expanse of snow. “How are you going to get home? I’m not that afraid of driving—”
“I’m coming home with you,” I said. I kept my hands around the steering wheel to keep from reaching for his hand.
Adrian sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business who you fucked. You don’t owe me any explanations. Obviously.”
“I know that.”
“And I’m sorry he’s gotten the wrong idea about us, if that messes things up for you. I did try to explain that it was all for content.”
Was that why he’d said those things?
My hands were clenched so tightly around the wheel my fingers throbbed. “I heard you.”
“Then why are you coming to my place? And did you happen to notice I didn’t invite you?”
I struggled with what to say or whether to speak at all.
Part of me wanted to say that I cared about his feelings. About why he seemed to be hiding so much.
But I also didn’t want to say anything. Wanted to lose myself in his body again and take what I needed from him as long as he was willing to give it.
Instead of either of those things, I gave him a sliver of my trust.
“My parents died,” I said stupidly, telling him something he already knew. I swallowed the nerves climbing up my throat and continued. “Car accident on the mountain pass. They were, uh… coming back from a suppliers’ convention in Billings. Black ice.” I shook my head. “It was awful. I…”
Adrian’s hand landed warm and solid on my leg and squeezed gently. “Fuck, Maddox. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “It’s not… I don’t…” I shook my head again. “I’m not still grieving them like that. Not like I was at first. I mean, I have good days and bad, but it’s not about their death anymore. It’s more… I worry about letting them down. With the store and with Maya. But also…”
I pulled in front of his rental and threw the vehicle into Park before rubbing my hands over my face and turning to meet his eyes. “Sometimes I feel like I’m doing what I ‘should’ do,” I said, using air quotes, “and then my mom’s voice is in my head telling me none of that stuff matters and to do what makes me happy.”
Adrian reached over and ran his hand over my head and down into the hair at the base of my skull. “And then you loop yourself in circles wondering what the fuck happy even is,” he said with a gentle smile.
“Yeah. That.”
“I know what you mean. I feel like happy is a moving target. Some days, I think I’m happy doing what I do, traveling and meeting people all over the world, and then some days… some days, I wonder what the fuck I’ve gotten myself into. Some days, I loathe it.”
Adrian’s fingers toyed with the hair at my collar, sending goose bumps all over my skin. My eyes met his, and heat flooded my veins.
“What would make you happy right now?” My voice sounded whiskey-soaked and rough. At this point, I was barely keeping it together. I wanted him desperately.
His jaw flexed. “To stop imagining that rancher’s hands on you.”