Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Post-Sean Ethan Harris knew what it was like to feel, something I’d been afraid of most of my life.
Sean rolled over, nuzzled his face into my neck, and mumbled, “Why aren’t you sleeping?” in a groggy voice.
“It’s dark, and you didn’t look at me. How do you know I’m not sleeping?” I asked him.
“I can tell. Your body feels different. You’re not relaxed right now. You’re thinking. I can practically feel the wheels turning in your head, Straighty.”
“Show off,” I mumbled into his hair. “And don’t you think it’s time you stopped calling me that?”
“No,” he replied and then pushed up onto his elbows, so he could look down on me. It was probably about three in the morning. Lights from the city gave enough of a glow that I could partially see him. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Be real. No jokes or competitions or suddenly deciding you want my ass.”
“What if I want to give you mine?” I teased, and he growled at me.
“That’s what I mean. I want inside your head.” He kissed my temple, and I closed my eyes and savored it because it felt so goddamn good. “I told you I see you, and I do, but I want you to give me more of yourself too.”
“I’ve given you more than I’ve ever given anyone else,” I replied, but then added, “I was thinking about us.”
He grinned, lightly bathed in city lights. “You’re totally whipped.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. I know.” What was it about him? I didn’t understand how he worked himself through cracks in my armor.
Sean leaned in and rubbed his nose against my cheek. “I love the way you smell in my bed. Tell me what you were thinking about us.”
I squeezed him. Little bastard was good at getting his way with me. “I was just…” He licked the shell of my ear, making my brain turn to mush, which I was sure was his plan. He was good at handling me. “I was just thinking…so this is what it’s like to feel.”
His breath hitched in my ear. He tried to pull back to look at me, but I threaded my fingers through the back of his hair so he couldn’t. Now that I’d started talking with him, I realized I wanted to continue but I thought it would be easier that way.
Like he always did, Sean understood me. He nuzzled my neck and let me speak.
“When my parents died…I didn’t let myself feel anything because it hurt too fucking much. There was no one there to push me the way you do. My grandmother was cold, distant, so I became that in a way too. Not on the outside. I played it off well, but I cut myself off from true emotions. You fucked that up.” I chuckled, but Sean didn’t. He just continued to breathe me in. To comfort me.
We were quiet for a few moments. I knew his brain was going crazy like mine was and I was still trying to make sense of how we got there—both that night and since we’d met. “I lied to you,” I admitted and felt Sean tense up. “Well, maybe not lied, but I wasn’t completely honest.”
Sean pushed up on his elbows again, and I let him. “Is this where you tell me you weren’t really an ass virgin when I had you?”
I smiled because it was the perfect fucking thing he could have said to me. It made the rest of it easier somehow.
“It was my fault,” I admitted, and he frowned.
“What was your fault?”
“My parents. The accident. I was in the car.” I lived.
“Jesus Christ, Ethan. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me you were there? And it couldn’t have been your fault.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “Why did you have to wake up? I was mostly thinking about how fun it was to have a boyfriend. I don’t know how I started talking about this.”
He climbed over me, settled his naked body between my legs, and looked at me. “Because you need to talk about it. Because you’ve never talked about it. Tell me, or I won’t have sex with you anymore.”
That time, I was the one growling at him. “You couldn’t handle it.” I palmed his ass. “You’re mine.”
“Tell me, Ethan,” he pleaded, more softly now.
I fingered his hair. Touched his cheek. Felt my world tilt even more. It had been off its axis since the moment we met. “We were in the car.” I rolled my eyes. “No shit, we were in the car, right? That was stupid. I had this small Nerf gun. They’d asked me not to play with it in the car before. I hadn’t even told them I’d brought it. Dad was driving and they were laughing and talking.”
I closed my eyes, felt the ache in my chest growing. Fuck, this was hard. Goddamn Sean and making me feel shit.