Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
I don’t have the strength to push him away again. It nearly killed me the last time. I know Kerris said putting him first is love, but maybe I’m too broken for that kind of love. Maybe I’m too selfish to put what’s best for him over the overwhelming need to have him in my life. To keep him. My heart aches that being with me might cost him his dream of running the Collective. I’m torn, but not perfectly, evenly in half. Most of me is too grateful to have him back, damn the repercussions.
“Sof?” Trevor asks, his voice gravelly with sleep. “You up, darlin’?”
I pass my hand over his brow, exploring the strong, high cheekbones and square chin. I’d know this face anywhere. Even in the dark, the angles, the planes, the curve of his mouth—they rivet me. He brings my hand to his lips, repositioning himself until his head and shoulders rest in my lap on top of the comforter. I slide my hand under his chin so my thumb can trace his mouth. This simple intimacy soothes the ache in my soul I thought beyond reach.
“Are you okay?” He pulls my hand down to his broad, bare chest, mingling our fingers.
“I’m better now that you’re here.” I pause, trying to swallow my guilt, but it doesn’t go down easily. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away and shut you out like that.”
He tilts his head back, angling to see my face even in the dim light.
“No, you shouldn’t have, and if you do it again there will be consequences.”
“Like what?” I find a smile because I know this version of Trevor, and he always makes me smile.
“Like locking you in my house on Tybee Island and making you my sex slave.”
My laugh is helpless and husky.
“You sure know how to punish a girl, Bishop.”
“Don’t do it again, Sof.” The humor faded fast, and his sober tone behooves me to listen.
“I won’t. I promise.” I close my eyes, ashamed of the very public stunt I pulled. “Trevor, about Rip. Nothing happened between us the other night. I just…I wanted to throw the media off your trail.”
He’s quiet so long I wonder if he doesn’t believe me. After a few moments he turns, grasping my hips and sliding me down until we’re lying face-to-face, the brightening skyline revealing his watchful expression.
“Did you kiss him?” His voice pulls tight, braced for my answer. “Did he touch you?”
I reach up and push the hair, just now growing back, away from his forehead.
“No. I told him I’d finally agreed to see him face-to-face so he could have the closure he thought he needed.” I shrug. “It was just an excuse, and had the added benefit of distracting the media from your involvement with me.”
His hands at my hips spread over my bottom, his fingers warm through the sheet. He dips his head to my ear.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re mine, Sofie Baston?”
My heart flips behind my sternum, his words sending a thrill through me. I fold my arms between us, elbows bent, fingers locked around his neck.
“And you are mine, Trevor Bishop.”
“About damn time,” he says, closing the space between us, pulling my lips between his, his mouth possessive, claiming me and yielding to me in the same breath. He pulls back after a few moments, pressing our foreheads together and running his hand over the choppy mess of my hair.
“Thank you for telling me about Rip,” he says. “I needed to hear you say that, but in my heart, I knew nothing happened.”
“How’d you know?” My hands press into the hard muscles of his back, run down to the taut waist.
“Because I trust you.” He tilts my chin. “And because I figured you were trying to protect me. Henri told me what she said to you about the Collective.”
I carefully pull my chin from between his fingers, lowering my head. I wouldn’t blame him for choosing the Collective over me, but the same heart that flipped moments ago, hurts from that possibility.
“All I know is the woman who made a sacrifice like that for me, the woman I saw at that press conference yesterday,” he says, taking my chin again and locking his eyes on mine. “That woman is worthy of my love. I just hope I’m worthy of hers.”
If there is such a thing as time in this utopia we’re in right now, then it stops while I try to make sense of what he just said.
“Love?” My voice lays limp between us, uncertain. “You…well, you—”
“Love you, yeah.”
“Bishop, you don’t have to say it.” I shake my head. “If you—”
“Well, I need to hear you say it.” He traces my eyebrows, his long fingers pushing back my hair. “Do you?”
There’s no rationale to us. He’s the saint. I’m the sinner. He’s always known he wouldn’t settle for anything other than an urgent love. I’ve only ever had phonies, sorry substitutes for this real emotion, this visceral connection we share. We shouldn’t be here together, but we are. Our hearts defied those odds, and I can only be grateful.