Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“Yeah, didn’t know you were coming to the shop,” I said, trying to sound unscathed and like my world wasn’t about to be taken from me.
She let out something that was a cross between a laugh and a sob. Fuck, I had to do this and leave, or I wouldn’t be able to do it. What I’d done to her, I’d never be able to take it back. I didn’t deserve Salem, and I never had. But I had claimed her anyway. Now it was time to set her free.
“We want different things in life. We’ve grown apart, and it’s just going to get worse. It’s time to stop holding on to something that needs to end.” I choked out the words and walked back to the door. I hadn’t gotten far from it. Said what I’d needed to, and I had to get the hell out before I cracked.
“Wh-what?” she stammered in disbelief.
I grabbed the cold handle. “You’ll thank me one day,” I told her, and that was probably the only truth I’d said since she opened the door.
Knowing I shouldn’t look back, I turned around anyway when I stepped back into the hallway. One last time. Just in case she didn’t come back to me. If this was the last time.
Tears were streaming down her face as she closed the distance between us. My driving need to grab her and hold her, reassure her, promise her anything was clawing at me.
“Fuck you, Rome Bower,” she sobbed as she glared at me with more pain than hate.
The sharp crack of her hand against my cheek startled me, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing would ever hurt again. Not after I endured the worst torment a man could face. Losing his soul.
5
Salem
Present Day
My wanting to stay with Rome was one thing, but the fact that I’d been stalked was something that was going to give me nightmares. The day in Pepper’s bar flashed in my mind. This place, Rome, Pepper, the other women—it had been distracting. I hadn’t sat around and thought about the why and how I had ended up here. But this information made it all real again. Shaking me and reminding me that I had been in danger. More than I’d even realized.
And I still was.
Would Rome want me if I’d not been forced upon him, right down the hallway, unable to get away from him? Would he have sought me out otherwise? How long would it be before I became an unwanted burden?
“The way you’re scowling, Angel Face, makes me think you don’t want to stay here with me,” he said.
I lifted my eyes back to meet his. He could not be more wrong.
“It’s not that. I…I don’t want to be something that gets in your way. You’ll resent me if I’m this responsibility you didn’t ask for.”
He raised his eyebrows as he looked at me, like he couldn’t believe I’d just said that. “You’re not serious.”
I was very serious. “Yes, I am.”
He blew out a breath and then let out a deep chuckle. “I thought I’d been pretty clear about wanting to have you here with me. I didn’t put you in my bed for a fuck. I put you there to stay. Sure, I didn’t think that would be the outcome the first night. You’d just passed out drunk. But when I got in bed and you curled up against me”—he paused and ran the pad of his thumb over my lower lip—“I was home. Contentment—hell, baby, pure fucking joy coursed through me. I’d not felt that in eighteen years. You will never be a responsibility. You’re well beyond that. You’re a requirement. One I need to survive. I won’t lose you a second time.”
I wanted to trust that. It was time to let go of the past. He wasn’t a boy who had just lost his mother. He was a man who had lived life and knew what he wanted now.
“Salem.” His voice was a husky whisper.
“Yes?”
“The first night you slept in here, you were drunk, but when you cuddled against me, right before you dozed off to sleep, you told me you loved me.”
Oh God. Why had I drunk so much?
“I did?” My words were almost too soft to hear.
He nodded. “But I need to know if sober you feels the same way.”
Whew. Okay. Had I ever not loved him? God, was I ready to bare my soul that way?
His eyes traveled over my face as his thumb gently caressed my cheek. He still took my breath away. My heart still went crazy when he was around. The pleasure that came from the sound of his voice had never been matched.
“Yes,” I admitted.
But I didn’t say anything else. Loving him all these years was for me to hold close. Saying it felt like a betrayal to Eamon. One he didn’t deserve.