Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
“Oh, I already know you’re too much trouble,” he confirmed matter-of-factly. “But I don’t plan to marry you—at least not yet—and the good with you clearly outweighs the annoyance factor of having you around.”
“The what factor?”
He kissed me then, there at the table, not gentle when his lips met mine, wanting me to feel his desire, but then softly on the cheek and the side of my neck, and told me to finish my food because he wanted to take me home.
“No one ever wants to keep me.”
“Because you’re a pain in the ass,” he conceded with a shrug. “Yes, I know. I have no doubt. But here’s the thing, I actually see you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re very defensive, do you know that about yourself?”
“I am not defen––”
“I can see your heart, George Hunt, and so all the rest of it, all this bluster you create to keep people away, isn’t going to work on me.”
I stared at him, studying his face.
He pointed to himself. “Trained psychiatrist. I see the fortress and walls you’ve built up. I can navigate the pitfalls and the booby traps. I’ve got this.”
I shook my head. “I can’t have you using me as a human guinea pig for––”
“No,” he agreed, hand back on my cheek. “All I’m saying is that what usually works for you, lets you push people out of your life, isn’t going to work for me. You can huff and puff, but you won’t scare me away. I like wolves. They’re my favorite.”
I squinted at him.
He grinned at me.
“You’re weird.”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
I cleared my throat. “My last girlfriend broke up with me because I was gone too much.”
“Well, I like my alone time, and I’ll like it even more when you’re home with me, so I wouldn’t worry.”
“How do you know? Maybe you won’t like me at all!”
“I already like you, and all this protesting makes me like you even more.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re scared. And if you’re scared, you care already, and that’s a good thing. Everybody wants to matter, and I’m no different.”
“I’m sure you already matter to your family, to your friends.”
“Yes, but I mean I want to matter to someone who can live without me but doesn’t want to.”
It was exactly what I wanted. To matter. To be somebody’s person. To be the person they had to have or their life wouldn’t be as good as it could be if I was there.
“You don’t even know me,” I mumbled, needing to look away from his gaze that didn’t miss anything. He was right, he really did see me.
Gently, hand on my chin, he turned me back to look at him. “I know this much,” he murmured. “Tonight you put your life on the line to save a young man who means nothing to you, for the sole reason that a young woman you love like a sister asked you to. You would take a bullet for her, not because it’s your job, but because you adore her, and you looked out for me because your heart wouldn’t allow you to do anything less. You’re a knight, you protect everyone in your orbit, and I think the reason you’re not good at relationships is that you’re afraid to love someone as hard as you can.”
Trauma when I was young, having no home, no family, no touchstone of any kind, had made me, early on, the guy who got way too attached way too fast. I’d been the guy who was always there, too close, too present, who suffocated others without even realizing it. The fix for that had been that I ran now at the first sign of trouble. Before I was told to go… I went. My buddy Ian had told me that maybe I was overcompensating and had gone a bit too far the other way. The point was to find some balance. He would know. Before he met his husband, he’d been a bit of a runner himself.
“Listen,” Kurt directed, leaning in close, his breath warm on the side of my face, “I don’t run, and you can’t scare me.”
“Because you see me,” I rumbled, my voice coming out gravelly and low.
“That’s right,” he agreed, brushing his lips over mine. “I was dazzled when I first got in the car, and over the course of the evening, every new part of you that you’ve shared with me has only deepened my desire to take you home.”
I stared into all that gray, and for the first time, the person I was looking at didn’t look away but met my gaze until it was me who had to stop.
“Okay,” I said, picking my burger back up. “Let’s go to my place as soon as I scarf the rest of this down.”
He grimaced. “You know, I could make you an egg-white omelet or—oh God.”