Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
“Why?” I asked. “Why would it break?”
“Because,” he whispered, “I want you with me all the time, and you’re too far away.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, player, I’m right underneath you.”
“I want you on top of me.” He nibbled on my bottom lip. “I want you underneath me. Next to me…” He pulled me closer, his arms wrapping around my waist, not my neck but my waist as if he needed my body fully pressed against his. “By my side.”
“What?”
His lips found mine in a tender kiss. “They say if you kiss under the stars, the person will be by your side.”
“Did you just make that up?”
“Maybe I just wished it to be Tru, get it?”
I laughed and flopped down next to him. “I’ve never had someone by my side.”
“Well…” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Wish on a star, and maybe you’ll have someone.” He was quiet. “Maybe he’s already there.”
I wasn’t one to cry over stupid stuff. I’d lived a life of poverty, a life of trying to protect myself, a life of constantly being isolated or moving, and for the first time, I looked up at the stars and wished for someone for myself.
I wished for him.
For someone to be by my side—not as a hero but as a partner.
I wished for him.
“So…” He turned to me. “Tru, what do you really want for your birthday?”
I turned to him and kissed him with everything in me. Our lips met in a chaotic way that made me almost embarrassed by my aggressiveness. He tasted so good, like the air, the sea, nature, everything I needed to embrace. He pulled away and eyed me up and down. “Happy birthday, Tru.”
I frowned. Was he giving me something?
I wasn’t sure until he kissed me harder and pressed me against the blanket. “Happy birthday.” He pulled off my shirt.
“Happy birthday.” He shoved my swimsuit bottoms down. “Happy birthday.” He paused, hovering over me, his arms on each side of my head resting there. “Happy birthday.” He pressed a tender kiss to my neck and whispered, “Nobody deserves a birthday the way you do, so from the bottom of this egotistical, silver spoon-fed asshole, Harvard—ass with a capital A—please, have a happy birthday.”
My swimsuit bottoms were off.
I was half naked below him.
And all he did was lower his head. His tongue licked each thigh and then went higher as he smiled against my pussy. “Blowing out candles…is so over-fucking-rated. I’d rather lick you.”
Now
I jolted myself out of the memory the way someone would during any sort of trauma or memories because, at the end of the day, it didn’t last, did it?
I didn’t want to be upset, but I was.
Only because my birthday was coming up, and every birthday, I thought of that moment, and it was all his fault that I did. Nothing would ever come close to it. My brain wouldn’t even allow me to finish the memory, and for a good reason, I guessed.
I grabbed my phone, my pillow, and put on some comfy clothes, then walked into his room and smacked him on the ass. “Wake up.”
He jolted up and stared at me with confused eyes. “Why?”
“Yay, you’re alive!” I smacked him again because I could. “Okay, roomie, time to go back to sleep, but look forward to torture for the next eight hours.”
“It’s been torture.” He groaned and turned to his side.
“The concussion?” I guessed.
“No,” he grumbled. “Seeing you.”
My heart sank to my stomach. I turned away from him so we were back to back and didn’t let him see my tears. I hated that I agreed and whispered, “Same.”
CHAPTER 16
VAUGHAN
Iimagined this was how the CIA tortured people, and if it wasn’t, then the government really needed to rethink its methods.
Because right then, I was in hell.
If she slapped me on the ass one more time, I was going to smother her with my pillow. So far, she’d woken me up from a much-needed blissful sleep five times. Two she claimed were an accident. Accident, my ass—literally—as she held her hands above it in mock innocence and said, “I was just checking you were still breathing.”
“People don’t breathe out of their asses, Tru.”
Her smirk said it all. “Some apparently do.”
“You’re a demon.” I jabbed a finger at her. “From hell, one of the really bad ones.”
“Aw.” She’d skipped out of the room like she was in a motherfucking musical playing the lead role of villain. The fact that she didn’t cackle on her way down the hall shocked me enough to give me pause before passing out again.
It had been well over an hour, which meant my palms were already sweating, knowing she’d come strolling in any time. I had a plan, though. It could have been the concussion, but when I stumbled into the bathroom, I saw water and a cup. Maybe I was channeling Tru because my reflection was pure evil in the mirror.