Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
My pulse was razor sharp and unsteady, and I didn’t know if I was petrified of what he’d say next or filled with an unshakeable hope.
Carter wet his lips, shaking his head — not like he was unsure of what he wanted to say, but more that he was uncertain of my reaction to it.
“I want more,” he finally spoke, his voice low and raspy. “God, Livia, I need more. I know I said I understood the terms and conditions when I signed. And maybe I meant it at the time, but fuck, honestly, I’m not sure I did. Even then, I knew you held a key to unlocking a part of me no one else had access to. And you have. You’ve… you’ve shown me all I’m capable of. You’ve made me the best version of myself. But more than anything, you’ve let me see the best version of you.” He kissed me again, this time slower and more urgent all the same. “And I can’t go back to just being your friend. I can’t lie to myself any longer, and I refuse to lie to you. It’s not about lessons anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. I want more. And I’m asking you to stand up to every ghost of uncertainty coming alive inside you right now and give it to me.”
As if he’d conjured them, I felt the spirits of my dark past rising within my chest, long fingers wrapping around my throat and squeezing tight.
“Okay, Rookie,” I said on a breathy, frail laugh that betrayed me. “Is this your practice run for Bachelor in Paradise? Because you’ve got the dramatic declaration down pat.”
The words left my mouth on autopilot, my go-to armor of sarcasm, but even as they hung between us, I heard how brittle they sounded. The joke didn’t land — not with the pounding in my ears, not with the tremor in my voice that gave me away. My pulse was still thundering, my hands still fisted in his jacket like I was clinging to a cliff edge.
And Carter didn’t smile.
His jaw flexed, eyes steady, unwavering.
“You always think I’m joking,” he said, voice low and hard as steel, each word pressed with purpose. “That I’m a joke. And you know now, better than anyone, how much that hurts.”
Instantly, any mask of indifference left me. I shook my head, concern for my negligence eating me alive. “Oh, shit. Carter, I didn’t—”
“No,” he said firmly, stepping in even closer somehow, like he wanted to crawl inside me to deliver his next hit. “Don’t soften it. Don’t take it back. You wanted me to stand my ground? Well, here I am.” His breath shook, his chest rising against mine as if this cost him everything. “I mean what I say, Livia. I’m not joking.”
His eyes burned, steady and sure.
“I love you.”
The words detonated between us.
My world tilted, ears ringing, the dust from the blast clouding every thought that battled for dominance inside my mind.
I shook my head, panic rising like a flame in the aftermath. “No. No, you don’t—”
“Yes.” He caught my chin, his thumb gentle even as his eyes were fierce. The way he stared at me, so intently, cleared everything, the dust settling, my senses rushing back at once. “I do. I love you.”
I didn’t mean to break. I didn’t mean for emotion to warp my face, for me to lean into his touch as tears welled in my eyes and fell in a silent stream down my cheek.
“You don’t think I know you don’t want to hear that? You think it doesn’t kill me to know you don’t feel the same?” His voice cracked, and still he never wavered. “But I can’t keep doing this halfway, Liv. I am impossibly lost inside the notion that you could actually be mine, if only I can stand my ground and claim you.”
And then I was kissing him.
It was hard and messy and unbridled, teeth meeting teeth, my nails clawing at his back to get him closer. I mounted him, lifting one leg until he took my weight before I wrapped the other around him and held fast.
Carter pinned me to the wall, meeting my desperation with a kiss so powerful I felt it like a prophecy in my soul, like it was destined to be, and we were at the mercy of a higher power.
I pushed at his chest even as my mouth devoured his, shaking my head against the truth of it, against the part of me that wanted to collapse into him completely.
Carter frowned, still kissing me, but his hands steadied. “Are you telling me no?”
I whimpered at the question, at the way my body revolted against my soul with the answer.
“You know the safe words,” he murmured against my lips. His hands framed my face, patient and certain.