Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
He’s out the door in an instant, and even quicker than that, Jack plants my backside onto the counter next to the sink.
Needing to rip the Band-Aid off before the hurt in Jack’s eyes siphon my heart of even more blood, I mutter through trembling lips, “Jack—”
“Shhh,” he interrupts, his voice still pained. “I’ve got you.”
An involuntary hiss leaves my lips when he raises my feet to inspect them. They’re still cut up and bleeding, but standing shoeless on a wooden dock for hours on end has added splinters to the open wounds.
“You shouldn’t have run, Tivy. You should have stayed.” Before I can get in a word, Jack mutters, “But I shouldn’t have been so stupid either.” After fishing a pair of tweezers out of the top drawer like he is intimate with the floorplan of my apartment, he returns his focus to my feet to dig out the slivers of wood. “I should have warned you about my back. I should have been honest from the start.”
“Jack, no—”
He continues speaking as if I never spoke, “I just liked the way you looked at me, and I selfishly didn’t want that to change.”
He peers at me through long lashes when I murmur, “It wouldn’t have changed. Nothing you could say would make it change.”
He takes a moment to gauge the authenticity of my reply before asking, “Then why did you run?”
“Because…”
My words clog in my throat when his brows pull together tightly. He darts his eyes between my lips and chest three times before he eventually locks them with my face. “Why are you shivering?” Before I can answer him, he unearths another untruthful fact as to why I can’t stop shaking. “Your hair is drenched through. Why is your hair wet?” His ragged exhale fans my cheeks when he pulls back Caleb’s raincoat to expose my soaked dress. “We need to get you warm. If we don’t, you’re going to catch pneumonia.”
“I’m fine—”
He cuts off any further argument with a rueful glare. He wants me warm, and come hell or highwater, our conversation won’t recommence until my lips and the tips of my toes are no longer blue.
I anticipate he will drag in the bedding from my room or a heap of towels from the linen cabinet to wrap me in, so you can picture my shock when he toes off his shoes and lowers the zipper of his brand-new trousers.
When his hands shoot to the buttons on his dress shirt, I beg my mouth to move, to speak the words screaming through my head, but no matter what I do or how hard my head pleads for me to make this right, my words stay trapped in my throat, and Jack continues stripping.
A sob I’m not anticipating rips from my throat a few seconds later. Jack assumes it is in response to the chilly ache that zooms through my body when he commences peeling off the clothes that are so drenched, they cling to my goosebump-riddled skin, but that isn’t the case. It is in response to Jack removing every article of clothing bar the plain white T-shirt he was wearing underneath his tuxedo shirt.
Instead of letting my tears soak the front of his shirt like the showerhead does the back when he enters the shower stall by walking backward, I do what I should have done when I spotted his scars for the first time. I protect him as fiercely as he is endeavoring to protect me.
Jack balks when I push back from him far enough so my hands can shoot down to the hem of his shirt. If he wants to protest about me stripping him bare, he leaves it too late. I drag it up his rock-hard stomach and over his thrusting chest before whipping it past his head and dumping it onto the tiled floor.
His heart rate mimics the speedy incline mine is undertaking when I band my arms around his waist and bury my face into his chest. My fingertips brace the scars he’s ashamed of, the marks my grandfather gave him, but I hold on tight, confident nothing is more important right now than him knowing he has nothing to be embarrassed about.
He did nothing wrong.
Several long minutes pass in silence. It isn’t long enough for the water to run cold, but it gives Jack plenty of time to believe the reason behind my comfort. I’m not ashamed of his scars. I’m embarrassed that I know the person who gave them to him and that it took so long for anyone to storm in and stop him.
“Jack—”
He doesn’t shush me this time or render me speechless by squashing his index finger to my lips. He uses his tongue, lips, and hands to turn my objections into dust and my heartache into need.