Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 101254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I jerk backward at his words.
He stands abruptly, rakes his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, Tessa. Those words should have never come out of my mouth. Certainly not today, after what you’ve been through. Probably not ever.” He sits down. “Can you forgive me?”
I reach out and caress his cheek. His expression is so tortured, so full of anguish. He’s hurting for me. But he’s hurting for himself, too, and that’s why he lashed out.
“I can forgive you,” I say. “And you’re right. I’m not ready for that.”
But I want to be.
Because all those things he just described? I want them. From him.
Only from him.
“I can stop with a kiss,” he says. “I learned self-control a long time ago. But that’s not even the point. I want our first kiss to be perfect, something you’ll always remember, and if I kiss you now, it will forever be tainted with grief for your father. Plus, something’s still bothering you. Something about that bartender in Jamaica. Something…” He rubs his forehead. “I can’t kiss you yet, no matter how much we both want it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ben
Tessa, Eva, and their mother, Carlotta, go home to Carlotta’s house later that day.
I brought them to my place because it was closer to the hospital, and I wanted them secure.
Sherlock drove them home, but I didn’t accompany them.
Tessa needs some space.
She’s as strong a woman as I’ve ever met, but she’s struggling with so much, and all I can do is think about her—think about getting inside of her beautiful body, not only because I want to desperately, but also because it would ease some of my own suffering.
Fucking Dirk Conrad.
But I can’t blame him.
No. I have only myself to blame for getting involved with that stupid gang of lowlifes, anyway.
I knew better, but I did it anyway. I did it to rebel against my life.
My hard fucking life.
Never in a million years did I consider that there was something better out there. That Braden, Dad, and I would someday never want for anything.
That idea wasn’t even on my radar back then. I was thinking about all the beef jerky I could eat and some money to take a girl out the way she deserved for once.
It wasn’t until four years later, when I was twenty-one and Braden was twenty-four and we met the Ames sisters, that we were able to get our business off the ground and market Braden’s invention.
Nothing can be proved.
Even then, I was smart enough to take every precaution we needed to take.
In fact, I was the brains behind the whole thing.
I had to be. The other three were fucking idiots.
But when push came to shove, it was all my idea.
A man lost his life.
Sometimes, when I look down at myself in the shower, I see not drops of water sliding down my body but rivulets of blood.
And I remember…
I remember all the blood…
…
Fifteen years earlier…
“What the fuck did you do that for?” I demand.
“You said this place would be empty, Black. You fucked us all over.”
I thought it would be empty. Just a warehouse where my father bought supplies at rock-bottom prices that had a big stash of cash behind some loose drywall.
I don’t know who it belonged to or where it came from, but I didn’t care. If it had been legally obtained, no one would be hiding it.
So I figured, what the hell? Rather than a grand from a convenience store safe, I had an easy mark worth so much more.
I knew how to get in and out of the warehouse, and no one knew I knew about the cash.
So we went for it. None of us had guns, or any other weapons, for that matter. At least that was our agreement beforehand.
But Dirk—he had a switchblade.
I didn’t know about it. Carlos and Jerry might have known, but I didn’t.
And…someone else was in that warehouse. Why? I don’t know, but he was there.
When the man came at us—big and burly—Dirk went crazy.
Pulled out a switchblade and ran at him, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing…
And the blood.
The spattering blood. From his chest, from his mouth…
All over my face, my arms, my clothes.
All over my fucking shoes.
The blood, the blood, the blood…
But I held steady.
Carlos threw up, and Jerry looked away for a minute.
I gulped it all down.
It isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
No.
When I first saw my mother’s face after she was burned, flesh and skin dripping from her.
What I’m seeing now? Blood spurting out of this big, burly dude?
It doesn’t look nearly as bad.
What the hell were you thinking?
The words hover at the back of my throat, but I can’t bring them forth. I can’t bring anything forth.
I can’t even scream, the way Carlos is shrieking like a little girl.
Damn, damn, damn…
Finally, I pull Dirk away.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” I say.