Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
For a while, we don’t move.
Just the sound of our breathing in the dark.
Eventually, I roll to my back and she curls into me, both of us naked under her soft white quilt, her head on my chest as her fingers trace lazy circles along my stomach.
“I’m a hopeless romantic,” she whispers.
I don’t say anything.
“I write about love for a living,” she adds. “So I know how it’s supposed to feel. And I know better than to expect it from someone who’s never promised it.”
I tense beneath her, but she keeps talking, soft and slow.
“I’m having a lot of fun with you . . . but just so you know, I don’t need anything from you, Hunter. I’ve learned not to need things from people who can’t give.”
I stare at the ceiling. My chest is tight in a way that has nothing to do with exertion.
A woman said something like that to me once, years ago. She was trying to play hard to get. Make me chase her. Prove something. The more she acted too cool to care, the more I knew she felt the exact opposite.
But from the moment I met Wren, she’s not been one to play games. She’s brutally honest, unafraid of the kinds of topics that make most people uncomfortable. She’s unapologetically herself. I believe what she’s saying . . . except it only makes me want her more.
I want to say something. Tell her she’s wrong. That I can give her more. That I want to. And I plan to.
But I don’t.
Because I can’t shake the feeling that maybe she’s right.
Maybe I can’t.
I’ve never been able to give anyone all of me. Not the women before her. Not even the ones who waited years for a fraction of what I gave her tonight.
I disappointed every single one of them.
But Wren?
God.
I don’t think I could live with myself if I broke her heart.
“What are we doing?” she asks.
I glance at her, playing dumb because part of me wants her to take the lead on this. I’ve never been good at talking about my emotions, especially when they’re terrifyingly out of my control.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“This.” She gestures between us. “If we keep doing this, someone’s going to catch feelings.”
I give her a slow half smile, brushing her hair back from her face. What I really want is to tell her “Too late.”
She tilts her head, studying me. Sometimes I think this woman can read my mind. It sure feels that way when she looks at me like this.
I kiss her bare shoulder.
She goes quiet, directing her eyes on the ceiling like she’s sorting through a million complicated thoughts at the same time.
“I don’t like sneaking around,” she says after a couple minutes of silence. “But I also don’t want Atticus getting attached or confused. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
I trail my hand along her hip, teasing the curve until she squirms just a little. “I don’t know what it’s gonna take to show you I’m serious about making you mine. I don’t care how long it takes. But I’m not going anywhere.”
She watches me, suspicious but softening. “How do I know you’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”
“Honey, I barely have time to get all my work done in a week. You think I’ve got time to play games?”
She laughs quietly, shaking her head. “Then how do you keep managing to make time for me?”
I kiss her cheek, then her jaw, before moving lower. “Because I always make time for the things that are important to me.”
She melts a little, sinking into the bed, curling into my side with her head in the crook of my arm. We stay like that, the quiet humming between us.
After a while, she speaks up again. “I want to understand your . . . reputation.”
I glance down at her. “Yeah?”
“Tell me about your exes. All of them. I want a full postmortem.”
I let out a slow breath, eyes on the ceiling. I really don’t want to do this, but if it means she might give me a chance, so be it.
“Some of them, I can barely remember,” I begin.
I give her the rundown. The woman I dated casually for a few months, who started driving by my house late at night long after we ended things. The woman before that—wanted a baby with me even though we were more off than on, and I never once told her I loved her. She was sweet and kind, but her desperation made me feel like a means to an end.
“Before her,” I add, “there was a local woman. Owned a boutique. You might’ve gone to school with her. Prom queen back in the day. Peaked in high school. Never quite got over it. Still thinks she’s a big fish in a small pond.”