Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
How had he been doing it for years? I stared at him, knowing I wasn’t ready yet. Whatever he’d done in my past to protect me, I didn’t think I could handle it. Not today anyway. Maybe not tomorrow.
“If you could help me understand, I might be able to fix it. Help you,” I told him.
He stood there, staring at me. There was a pleading in his expression that warred with the side of him that was always unattached. Unavailable.
“I’ve never loved. I’m not sure what that feels like. I know loyalty. I’ve lived that. I understand it. But love …” He shook his head. “I have no label or example for that emotion. What I can tell you is that if I ever lost you, I would rip my own heart from my chest.”
My eyes stung, and I pressed my lips together as one emotion after another crashed into me. Pain, heartache for the boy who should have been taught love from experiencing it, fear for myself because I loved this man, and relief because he felt the same way.
I stood up, and his gaze followed my every move. He’d laid himself bare. Not held anything back. Been as honest as he could be.
“That,” I told him as tears filled my eyes, “is a description, albeit a disturbing one, of love.” I took a step in his direction. “You won’t lose me. I’m not sure you could even force me to leave. But you can’t kill everyone who hurts me. That’s something I need you to promise me.”
If I could have that reassurance, then we could work through the rest of it. Face it as it came. The dark parts of him he couldn’t seem to control. I would help him.
“You’re the only one who can ease my demons,” he said hoarsely. “If I have you to settle them, then that’s the only way I can do it.”
I gave him a watery smile. “There aren’t demons in you.”
He watched me as I walked to him. His eyes like a caress over my body.
“Yeah, little doll, there are, and they are as obsessed with you as I am,” he said when I reached him.
His hand came out and pulled me closer.
“If demons are obsessed with me, then what does that make me?” I teased him.
He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine reverently.
“An angel,” he whispered.
I laughed. “I think I like little doll better.”
He ran his hands through my hair and cupped the back of my head. “You can be both,” he told me, then picked me up so he could cover my mouth with his.
I wrapped my legs around him, hungry to taste him. Too much had happened today, and I needed the connection. He was completely unhinged and possibly as psycho as his friends believed him to be. But he was mine, and for me, he wasn’t either of those things. I had the man he would have been if he’d been shown love. They could all believe he was wired wrong, but he was wired perfectly. For me.