Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
“You’re not, are you?” I ask. “Talk to me, Reid,” I plead, my hands going to his hand on my face, and I try to twist around, but he’s still inside me, he’s still holding me in place.
“Of course, I am,” he says, the word defying the fact that he won’t let me turn and look at him. “I’m laying here naked with my future wife. I’m fucking perfect.” He kisses me again and then he’s shifting us, reaching for my hands and untying them. “Don’t move, baby,” he orders. “I’ll get you something. I’ll be right back.” He stands up and I roll over to watch him walk away, all naked, sinewy muscle, to the bathroom where he disappears. I stare at the doorway that he doesn’t immediately exit and decide he’s not okay. He’s not even close to okay.
I stand up, grab some tissues from the nightstand, and then find my robe lying on the floor by the bed. I snatch it up, slip it on, pulling it around me as I cross to the bathroom to find out what is going on with my man. Entering the open door, I find him now in a pair of sweats facing the sink, his hands on the counter, his chin to his chest, torment radiating off of him. My gorgeous man, who I’d once thought without real feelings, is hurting, and I fear that in some ways I’ve opened up his wounds. I’ve cut him where he was already cut.
I close the space between us and press my hand to his shoulder. “Reid?”
He pulls me between him and the sink, his hands on my waist, his face buried in my neck. “You smell like me.”
My hand goes to his face. “I want to smell like you for the rest of my life. Talk to me.”
He’s slow to move, but he inches back and fixes me in a blue-eyed stare. “Old wounds, baby. You know I have them.”
“There’s more to tonight than the old wounds I know about. What haven’t you told me?”
He studies me for several long beats. “I need a drink.” He kisses my temple. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” And then he pushes away and walks out of the bathroom.
I stand there, staring after him, and confused by what just happened, by the closed door that was just slammed in my face. I swallow hard at the stab of his rejection that I know comes from my own old wounds, that part of me that fears loving and losing.
I force myself to set aside my emotions and think about Reid, just Reid, the way he did for me when I was bound in the middle of the bedroom. And so, I process what just happened, all the way back to dinner and I decide that he needs a few minutes alone to gather his thoughts, and that’s okay. Love and marriage don’t mean that you don’t ever need space. I walk to the closet, pull on sweats and a tank, and then walk to the window in the bedroom, staring out at the beautiful night sky, stars speckling the night, the lights proving this city never sleeps.
I love Reid. I love him so much and just as he understands how my past affects me, I need to understand how this affects him. He will have triggers. He will want to withdraw and I suddenly realize why tonight set me on edge, why being tied up in the silence got to me. He wasn’t completely with me. He’d already withdrawn. He’s wanted more from me, but he’d been giving me less. I felt it even before he walked out of that bathroom door. The question is: Do I let him withdraw? I think I have to. I can’t force him to be here with me one hundred percent, but I can’t marry him if he can’t. I suck in a pained breath. Maybe that’s what he’s decided. He can’t be here, not all in, not all the way.
I press my hands on the glass, hating how badly that idea hurts, but his withdrawal triggers my abandonment issues. These two things are bad in combination, and for the first time since the proposal, I fear we can’t make this work. “Carrie.”
Reid’s voice sounds behind me and I turn to find him approaching, already back, and with two glasses in his hand that say he was thinking of me, of us, not of ways to keep us apart. “I brought you wine,” he says, studying me a moment before he sets both glasses down, catching my hips and pulling me around to him.
“Whatever is going on in your head right now, stop,” he orders.
“I can’t stop. You just—you need space. I felt it and—”
“I needed five minutes, baby, and it was too much. I needed to be right here with you a whole hell of a lot more.”