Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“Kitchen. You need food.”
“I don’t know if I can walk that far.”
Something in me shifts, protective instinct snapping into place. “I’ll help you.” Fuck, I’ll carry her to the ends of Earth if it means she keeps breathing and she’s in my arms.
Her cheeks flush. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
The word hits me wrong. “You’re not,” I say firmly. “You never were.”
She searches my eyes for a long, questioning moment. “Are you sure?”
Kelly Ringle, sunshine wrapped in anxiety and fire, asking me if she’s too much? She’s everything I need and want. Only my dumbass let her slip through my hands. “Positive,” I reassure. I move slow, careful, sliding an arm around her waist to help her sit up. The moment my hand touches her side, her body reacts like muscle memory, a soft inhale, a shiver, a tightening of her grip around my forearm.
She feels it.
So do I.
Way too much. And right to my cock that I will into submission because there will be none of that.
“Tell me if anything hurts,” I murmur, steadying her as she stands.
“Everything hurts,” she admits. “But not because of you.”
Her honesty slams into me like a gut punch. We move slowly down the hallway. Every few steps she leans into me, and every time she does, that quiet little flame inside me burns hotter, steadier, impossible to ignore.
The kitchen is warm with morning light spilling through the windows. I guide her to a chair at the small table in my eat in kitchen.
“Stay,” I command, pointing at her like she’s a rebellious cat.
She lifts a brow. “I’m injured, not a wild animal.”
“Debatable.”
She gives a soft laugh, the kind that feels like a reward.
I grab eggs, bread, butter, sausage, whatever I can get my hands on. Kelly watches me the whole time, eyes tracking my movements like she’s trying to memorize them.
“You cook?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I reply, cracking eggs into a pan. “Picked up a thing or two.”
She frowns slightly still focusing on my movements. “I feel like I’ve seen you do this before.”
“You have.”
“When?”
I pause, spatula in hand. “A while back,” I state trying not remember how often I made her breakfast because we stayed up all night fucking and we both worked up an appetite. “I cooked for you a few times. When the opportunity presented itself. You bake all the time, I didn’t figure you wanted to spend a ton of your free time in the kitchen.”
She stares at me, something soft and searching in her eyes. “You really took care of me, didn’t you?”
My throat tightens. “Not enough.”
She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t ease the pain inside me that I let her down by saying I did. She also doesn’t say I didn’t. She accepts it at face value. When her memories come back will she relive the pain of our separation again?
Will I?
She watches me with a look I can’t decipher, a mixture of gratitude, sadness, and something that scares me because it looks too close to hope.
When the food is ready, I set a plate in front of her.
She blinks. “This looks… good.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I don’t know you,” she replies honestly. “But this feels familiar.”
She takes a bite. Her eyes close briefly. A soft noise escapes her, almost a hum.
My stomach drops.
I’ve heard that sound before.
In her kitchen.
In what feels like another life.
Late nights, early mornings, the two of us pretending whatever this thing between us was didn’t matter.
Except it did.
More than either of us admitted. And now I can’t help but feel like even the good has been lost. That guts me more than anything.
She opens her eyes and gives me a weary smile. “Thank you.”
I sit across from her with my coffee, watching her pick at the meal like every movement requires concentration.
After a few bites, she sets the fork down. “Ledger?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you tell me something?” Her voice is small, almost apologetic.
“Anything.”
She hesitates. “What, what was I like? Before?”
A painful warmth spreads through my chest.
“You were,” I stop, searching for words that aren’t too much. Too heavy. Too honest. “You were fire always burning bright for the people you care about. Soft when you wanted to be, sharp when you needed to be. You worked too hard. Worried too much. Cared more than you let on.”
Her eyes widen, filling with emotion.
“And you laughed,” I add. “A lot. Even when you were pissed you laughed which only made it hard to keep anything heavy going on.”
A tear slips down her cheek. She wipes it quickly. “I don’t feel like her,” she whispers.
“You’re still her,” I reassure. “Time and healing, sunshine.”
Her lip trembles. “Do you miss her?”
Miss her? I never stopped wanting her. But I can’t say that now, not when she’s this vulnerable, this lost, this dependent on me for stability.
So I give her the one truth that won’t break her.