Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
His nostrils flare again. “Run where?”
“Away from here.”
“Far away,” he corrects.
“F-far away.”
“And from who?”
“You.”
“Me.”
“I—”
He shakes my head again to shut me up. “Why?”
“Because you’re… you’re bad for me.”
“And why am I bad for you?”
“You’re”—I hiccup—“cruel and selfish.”
“You forgot one,” he reminds me and pulls my head back even more.
I have to wait a second so I can clench my thighs at his rough grip, the harsh stretching of my neck. “A-and dangerous.”
“Try again.”
“I don’t—”
He leans closer to me, hovering. “The one where I put my bare hands around the throat of the motherfuckers who’ve hurt you and squeeze really fuckin’ hard.”
God.
I suck my belly in, butterflies buzzing down there. “A killer.”
His chest moves with satisfaction. “Yeah. A killer.”
“But—”
Again, he shuts me up by inching closer, bringing his mouth over mine, not touching, though, only tempting. “So tell me again, why the fuck are you kissin’ me?”
I take him in. His harsh face, every line standing taut and sharp. His eyes dark and glittering, brutal. And I think to myself that I wasted so much time. So much time, lamenting the fact that his eyes weren’t blue like I imagined them to be. Or that his voice was too deep the first time I heard it, and his shoulders were broader than I thought. I wasted so much time thinking he was nothing like I’d dreamed about for the past six months, nothing like my Bo. When I should have been thinking that he was—is—everything I needed him to be.
Cruel, selfish, and dangerous, yes.
But also, fierce and protective and God, capable of so much love. This is what people call love. This is what people call loyalty. That he’s still willing to go through hell for the woman he loved. So isn’t it obvious why I’m kissing him?
I’m kissing him because I love him.
I fell in love with him when I only knew him as Bo and could barely imagine the fire inside of him, and I’m even more in love with him now when his flames have touched me. I keep rubbing my thumb in his stubble as I say, “Because I realized something.”
“What?”
“That I’m still mad at you.”
That gives him a pause. “You’re mad at me.”
“Yes,” I whisper, skimming my thumb along the curve of his lower lip. “If you think that I’ve forgiven you for all the things you’ve done because you wiped my tears, tears that you gave me, then you’re highly mistaken.”
His jaw pulses and I know he’s remembering my tears in this moment. Remembering and regretting. It’s plain as day on his face. It only makes me more determined to do this. “I keep the letters you wrote me in my desk drawer. Just beneath the window because Bo”—his frame tightens at the name and I clutch his face harder—“told me that he likes to watch the sky through his barred window. So I figured he’d like that. But now I know it wasn’t Bo; it was you. You liked to watch the sky through the window. I know I’ll never have the heart to move them, no matter how much I might want to. So they’ll just sit there, as a reminder. Your reminder. As the reminder of all the lies you told. I could fill a book with all the lies you told, all the crimes you committed, and still not be finished. I’ll have nightmares about you for the rest of my life. So yes, I’m mad at you and no, I haven’t forgiven you yet. But I want to.”
I can see his cheek pulsing as he stares down at me. “You shouldn’t.”
“That’s not up to you,” I say, arching up to him. “The only thing that’s up to you is apologizing.”
His hands move and go down to my waist where he grips me so tightly, I teeter on my toes. “How?”
I move my hands, too, and bury them in his hair before fisting the strands tightly. “You want me to be clean, don’t you? You want me to be free, to forget all about what happened. So then, you’re going to have to make me.”
His brow furrows. “Make you.”
I pull at his hair. “Yes, because you brought me here, remember? Against my wishes.”
Understanding finally dawns on him and his brow clears. His fingers on my waist grope and pull, pinch. “So you’re the victim.”
My heart flutters at him throwing his words back at me. But we’re way past that now, so I squeeze my arms around his neck and whisper against his lemonade-tasting lips that I can’t wait to get back to, “No, because I may not be a Turner but when you forced me to sign on that dotted line, it doesn’t matter what I wrote—I became a Grayson. And I don’t care if you did it for revenge or that I’m the wrong girl. All I care about is I’m your wife. You made me your wife. So now it’s your job to turn my nightmares into dreams.”