Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
My heart shattered for him, ground up into little pieces, leaving behind nothing but a deep ache. I wanted to fix it, but I knew I never could. I wanted to be his safe place, but I wasn’t that at the moment either. I was something else for him to blame on himself. It hurt to know your love for someone caused them pain. “Hey.” I hooked my finger beneath his chin and angled it so he looked at me. “I don’t know all the right words to say here. I just know that I love you. I love who you are, scars and all. There’s nothing wrong with you, Remy. You’re the most passionate and creative person I know. You feel things more, is all.”
I brushed my fingers along the scruff on his jaw, then his freckles. His eyes were glassy, his hat gone, his hair a tangled, frazzled mess, and fuck, he was so damn beautiful to me. “We’ll figure this out. You’re inside me, Rem, and that’s not gonna change. Time hasn’t evicted you, and anxiety won’t evict you either. Christ, you look at me and I feel like the luckiest person in the world. You let me in. You give yourself to me, and there’s nothing I want more than you.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said softly.
“Shut up with that shit. That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Do I? I’ve done this, the bar thing, how many times in my life? It’s not like I’ve never been in a damn bar before, but my head fucked it up tonight. You shouldn’t have to deal with that.”
“Remy…”
“I’m sorry I screwed it all up.”
“I—”
“Can we go home?”
I stood and held my hand out to him the way he had done earlier tonight to me. “Yeah. We can go home.”
But I couldn’t turn off my brain. I couldn’t stop wondering if I was doing right by him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Remington
We were quiet in the truck the whole ride back to Law’s. I was glad when he didn’t ask me if I wanted to go to my own house. If he had, I might have said yes, when I wanted to be with him.
I rode with my head against the side window, watching the darkness go by as we drove. My thoughts were a fucking mess, a tornado of anxiety and fear and anger I didn’t know how to compartmentalize. Sometimes I could, but tonight…tonight I couldn’t.
Maybe it was going home to see my mom, or maybe it was because I was planning on coming out and Steve was being dodgy again. Or hell, maybe, like I told Law, it was anxiety, and there was no getting around that shit. It happened, it would always happen, and I needed to figure out how to live with it—all of it.
The one thing I did know was that I wanted Law. I’d always want Law, and I’d craved my arms around him tonight and his hair tickling my face and for everyone there to know he was mine.
We were still quiet when we got home and climbed out of the truck. Law unlocked the door, and Bear came running out. “I’m gonna hang with him for a minute so he can do his business,” he said.
“Can I take a shower?”
“Of course, Rem. You don’t have to ask to do anything here. You know that.”
Yeah, yeah I did.
I went into the bathroom off his bedroom and turned the water on before I began stripping out of my clothes. My eyes were red, and my hat was gone, who the fuck knew where. My hair was a mess.
I was a mess.
Not for the first time, I wondered what in the hell he was doing with me.
When I got into the shower, I closed my eyes and let the hot water wash over me. Let it run down my head and neck and face like somehow it could wash all the bad shit away.
I wasn’t surprised when arms closed around me from behind. I leaned into him, my back against Law’s chest, savoring these moments where nothing else mattered but us.
“You feel good,” Law said close to my ear as he ran his hands up and down my stomach and chest.
“You always feel good.”
He chuckled. “Oh, I see how you are. Trying to show me up.”
I grabbed the soap and a sponge, and turned around to wash him. He let me take care of him, maybe knowing I needed it, before I cleaned myself too.
When we got out, I dried him off as well, and he gave me that gorgeous smile of his. “A guy could get used to this. You better be careful, or I’ll expect it all the time.”
“Okay.” If he was offering, I’d do it.
Once we were both dry, we went into the bedroom without a word. The lamp on his side of the bed was the only one on, and I liked that—thinking of it as his side and mine.