Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
I can’t make declarations. I can’t untangle my feelings right now. Too much has happened recently for me to trust anything I’m feeling and voice them as the truth.
What I do know is that I don’t want him gone, at least not today.
His hand is soft when he lifts it to my cheek. His lips are even softer when he brushes them against mine.
His fingers trail down my shoulder when he steps around me heading toward the bathroom.
I don’t know how long it will last, but right here is exactly where I want to be.
Chapter 36
Ugly
Waking up alone is the status quo. Hell, it’s preferred.
Today is different. I can’t even manage getting my eyes open much less climbing back out of this bed.
The room is silent. There’s no shower running in the bathroom or breathing across the room.
Empty. It all just feels empty, like something more than just her presence is gone.
As much as I want to go hunt her down, to chase her and correct her behavior exactly the way she likes me to, I also know she’s made up her mind. Lennox relinquishing any of her power to me was a gift. It was temporary. I need to come to terms with that because fighting for something she doesn’t want will only end up blowing up in my face. She’ll dig her heels in and she’ll be lost to me forever. I can’t think of anything worse.
Walking away should be easy. I’ve been through some crazy shit before. There’s always a woman in danger, always someone that needs to be saved. My inability to see Lennox that way surprises me. I should be bored by her already. I know it makes me sound like an asshole, but my presence in a woman’s life at any given moment has always been upon agreement that I wouldn’t stay there. I’m not permanent fixture material, but despite it starting that way with her, I just can’t seem to pull back.
She’s stronger than me, having made that choice. It’s probably the best one, and maybe one day I’ll be able to see it as such.
Her tragedy and my lack of stopping Dixon is what joins us. Maybe I want to help her now in any way she’ll let me because of the guilt I feel. My failure to keep Elizabeth, Rochelle, and her safe has me overcompensating.
As much as I’d like to put the way I’m feeling now on all the shit that has happened, I know I can’t.
These tragedies may bind us to each other, but I’m not exactly fighting against it.
I think back to my stance on settling down and feel completely foolish.
I argued about New Mexico, Farmington, and Cerberus and how so many think the combination of the three somehow has magical powers capable of changing who you are at soul-deep level.
I was the playboy, the man who preferred a different woman each night rather than putting in the hard work of figuring out what made one woman tick over time.
I’m a man. Bad sex is actually pretty hard to find. We’re simple fucking creatures when it comes to getting off. If there isn’t a medical condition causing problems, coming is going to happen no matter the situation.
I knew that first night with Lennox that something had the potential to change. I didn’t fight it. I did absolutely nothing to tamp it down or even dig deeper to see what could happen.
If I believed in fate or soulmates, I’d probably be freaking out right now.
I still can’t ignore the voice in my head that is screaming and telling me that if she’s not right next to me that she isn’t safe.
Chances and probability play a huge role in my job. I know all about tragedy and trauma and actions and reactions and self-harming behaviors. I’m aware of regret and how all of it combined can lead to some really horrible decisions.
It’s what pulls me out of the bed and forces me back into my clothes.
I tell myself that I can deal with it if she’s done with me. I know it will be a journey because, for some reason, without her in the room, I feel less than whole, but I have to see her and know she’s safe.
Stormy holds his hand up when I climb off the elevator, and pain circles around in my gut like the twine on a weed eater is lodged in there.
He shakes his head but it does nothing to calm me.
“She’s safe,” he says when he’s within hearing distance.
I know he wouldn’t lie to me, but I also know I won’t fully believe it until I see her with my own eyes.
I feel frantic, almost as if I’m coming down from a host of drugs I didn’t agree to have in my body in the first place.