Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
I’m absolutely not crying over the fact that he dumped me.
He didn’t dump me! We weren’t even together. We just fucked, and it’s cool. I can get the same pleasure from my toy and my dragon with two cocks book. My tears fall faster at the loneliness that follows that thought. But fuck that! I wipe my face aggressively. I’d rather care for myself and love myself than depend on some fucking man.
Each time Ciaran apologizes, it only makes me madder, and I feel so dumb. I made this into something it wasn’t. He gave me no promises, except those of orgasms, and I ran with it. I wanted it to be more. I wanted so badly what the heroines in my books have, what Austen has, that I allowed myself to yearn for something more than what our time together was.
It was just sex.
Great sex.
Mind-blowing sex.
“You don’t have to apologize, Ciaran. It’s cool.”
He hesitates, and I don’t understand that. “I’m truly sorry,” he says in a throaty, almost emotion-clogged tone.
As if he’s hurting doing this…. What the hell?
If this was a one-time thing, why is he struggling? Why is he acting like I’m the one ending it? His actions and words make no sense to me, but I can’t stay on the phone. “No worries. Don’t be a stranger.”
And I hang up, hoping like hell I never see him again. Which isn’t true. I wish I could see him face-to-face. Ask him why he doesn’t want me. Doesn’t he see how great we fit together, how wonderful the pleasure is between us? Maybe he’s embarrassed. Maybe he didn’t have a good time and I just imagined it, but then…the way he held me… All possessive-like. As if I was his.
I was.
But no more.
Then it dawns on me.
What if my scars grossed him out?
I felt his gaze on them when I removed his shirt before he left. Is that what happened? My tears fall faster, and anger vibrates within me. If so, fuck him. I am more than my scars, and I won’t allow him to make me self-conscious of them. I survived, I got out of that fucking cult, and I got my sisters out. I’m the heroine of my story, and I don’t need anyone. I don’t need him. I don’t need anything.
Fuck. Him.
I swipe the tears from my face again, fury coursing through me. I want to call Eliza, or even Austen, but I’m not ready to admit what happened, or even what I assume is the reason he doesn’t want me. Fucking asshole. Tears burn in my eyes, falling in heaps, and I hate myself for it. Why am I crying? I cried enough when my ex beat me with his belt. When I got Austen out, when I got Eliza and Elliot out, and then when Clara was finally free of them. When my mom stood there and watched not only my ex abuse me, but her husband, and she didn’t protect me. I have cried enough; no one deserves my tears. Especially not some guy who obviously doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.
I wipe them away, blistering with anger as I force myself to get up. I will not sit here and cry over him. I won’t let his lack of need for me affect my life. I have things to do, I have a business to run, and hell, I could go see my sisters.
I’m good. I’m fucking great.
As I tuck the rest of the preorder slips in the front of each of the books, my heart aches. I really wanted something with him. I did like him, and it was more than sex. I may not know everything about him, but the excitement of learning all those things made me giddy. Now…now, I’m just mad. I’m mad that I feel like I wasn’t enough. I’m pissed that I think it’s my scars, and I’m offended that I still want him.
God, I want him.
I’m so dumb.
I walk toward one of the bookcases, the front one where I want the new release’s extra copies to go. I climb the ladder, making room on the top so I can shift books up to create an open space at eye level. When the bell over the door dings, I want to scream since dealing with someone right now is the last thing I want to do.
“Welcome to Dirty—” My words cut off when I look over my shoulder to find Ciaran shutting the door behind him.
God, he’s beautiful. In a dark-blue suit that fits his body like a glove and stretches tightly along his thighs. He’s wearing an orange tie, and he didn’t shave this morning. His scruff is sexy, just as he is. His hair is brushed to the side, but what has me breathless is the purely tortured look on his angelic face. My mouth goes dry as my mind reels in confusion.