Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
He didn’t say a word as he walked me over to his bike, put my helmet on me, as he always did, then climbed onto the bike. I took his hand and threw my leg over, sliding in close to his back, then wrapped my arms around him.
Tears burned my eyes as I inhaled the leather vest and wondered if this would be my last time on the back of his bike.
30
Dolly
I walked into the apartment after Micah unlocked the door and opened it, then stepped back for me to enter. Silence. He hadn’t spoken one word to me, and I wasn’t sure what to say. Everything I’d thought I knew had been snatched away from me in moments. The security I had started to feel with him was gone.
“What did Pepper tell you about Calista?” he asked me.
I turned around to see him standing there with his arms over his chest defensively. As if I had something to answer for and this was all my fault. I wanted to scream at him. Hit him. Make him hurt the way I was, but I knew I’d never do that.
“That you grew up together. You were in love with her, and she left after her father was killed,” I said simply.
He swore under his breath. “Did she tell you I was eighteen years old? That it’s been almost seven fucking years?”
I nodded.
“Then, why do you look like that?” he asked, staring at me.
“Like what?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He dropped his hands to his sides, then tilted his head, and his expression softened. “Like I hurt you. Like I did something wrong and you can’t stand to look at me.”
I frowned. “What Pepper told me wouldn’t have had a punch if you hadn’t introduced me as a friend, then left me without any explanation.” I let out a hard laugh, then found that my pain was starting to turn to anger. “I guess I should have clarified exactly what it was we were doing here. I seem to have gotten my wires crossed what with you staying with me every night, fucking me, buying me a freaking pink helmet!”
Micah’s brows drew together, and he took a step toward me. “Did you just say fucking, Dolly Dixon?”
I scowled up at him. He wasn’t going to change the subject. Not now. Not when he had just pierced my chest like he had.
“Don’t,” I warned him, taking a step back.
“Don’t what? You don’t want me near you now? Because some girl from my past showed up and I didn’t respond the way I should have?”
I shook my head, narrowing my eyes at his beautiful face. “No. I’m just trying to decide if I want to keep fucking my friend or not,” I spat out, surprising myself.
He moved fast, and before I could move, his hands grabbed both my arms and held me still. I tried jerking free but realized it was pointless, so I just glared up at him.
“If the word fucking comes out of that pretty mouth one more time, I will turn you around and fuck you right here over this sofa. Now, if you want to talk about tonight and Calista, then we will do it. Yes, I handled it wrong. She had surprised me. Seeing her pissed me off. Her walking up to me like she had every right to made me fucking furious. But I shouldn’t have called you a friend.” He paused, then sighed. “I don’t really know what to label us, Tink. I’ve not thought about it. I just wanted her to leave.”
Girlfriend would have been an easy word to think of, but I didn’t say it. I bit my tongue because I wanted him to keep talking.
“She is my past. My youth. She means nothing to me.”
“You loved her,” I said.
He sighed, then nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
The little repair his words had done to my shattered chest was undone with those three words. I swallowed against the lump in my throat. It was closing in, getting tighter.
One hundred twenty-two, one hundred twenty-two, one hundred twenty-two.
“But it was a long time ago. Whatever love there was has been gone for years,” he said, then brushed over my lips with his thumb. “The woman I want to go to bed with tonight. The one I want in my arms. The one who makes me forget all this shit and the one I want to sink my dick into is you. Just you, Tink.”
But he didn’t love me. He wasn’t ready to call me his girlfriend.
This was something though. We had just been together or doing whatever it was we had been doing for a month now. I couldn’t expect him to fall in love with me so fast. But…I stared up into his face and knew I’d do whatever he asked of me and deal with the pain. Because I loved him.