Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
But in the glass room, I’d been soft with her.
I hadn’t hurt her.
Not that way.
It was something else.
And I was over the knot in my stomach worrying about it.
So I waited until everyone went to sleep or outside to do a sweep. Then I made my way down the basement stairs.
I expected her to be asleep, to have to wake her up and try to demand some answers. Even if the logical part of my brain knew I had no fucking right to ask for them.
But when I got to the bottom step, I heard a sniffle, then a little whimper.
There was a split second where everything in me screamed to turn and run.
Because, fuck, what the hell did I know about soothing a crying woman?
The other part of me, though, felt flayed open at the sound and desperately needed to put an end to it.
So I stepped forward toward the bunk bed.
Then, seeing her curled up to the far end near the wall, I sat down on the edge and placed my hand on her hip.
Her whole body stiffened as a gasp escaped her.
“Come here,” I demanded, pushing her hip until she was flat, then reaching for her wrist.
“I’m fi—”
“You can tell me to fuck off,” I cut her off. “But don’t lie to me.”
She lay there, staring up at me with swollen eyes and wet cheeks, her lashes all clumped together with her tears.
“Do you want me to fuck off?”
“Yes… no…”
“Well, ’til you make up your mind on that, come here.”
When I pulled, she folded up.
My arm went around her back, guiding her until she was up on my lap, her head under my chin.
She sucked in a deep breath that shook on its way out. And a pathetic little whimpering sound escaped her that felt like acid poured in that open wound in my chest.
My arms went tighter around her, like maybe if I tried hard enough, I could hold us both together.
“Shit’s getting kind of confusing, ain’t it?”
I got a little nod at that.
“Dunno if avoiding me is the answer to it, if you’re down here by yourself crying.”
“There is no answer,” she said, voice small.
“Maybe not. But being alone with it doesn’t seem to be doing anything good.”
“Preparation for what happens in a day or two or a week… when all this is over.”
We’re not gonna talk about the gut-punch sensation those words caused.
“Shouldn’t have put my hands on you,” I said. Her body tensed, tried to pull away. I held her tighter. “No. Not what I meant. I don’t regret… this.” Whatever this was. “But I regret that you’re upset because of it.”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted, tone getting a little far away.
“Don’t do that. Not with me.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re fine when you’re not. Know it’s what you do because you don’t want to be a burden, don’t want people to worry about you. But it’s not gonna work with me.”
“What do you want then?” she asked, tone sharper than I’d ever heard it. I figured that was a good sign. She wasn’t shutting down on me anymore.
“I want you to tell the truth.”
“Why?”
“Because I think we owe each other that.”
“Why? Because we’re sleeping together?”
That wasn’t real bitterness on her tongue. That was her attempt to cover hurt with hard. I knew that move so well that there was no way she could bait me into any kind of anger back at it.
“Because I think we both know we’re not just sleeping together.”
“That’s exactly—”
“Gonna cut you off there. Not gonna act like I know your dating history. But I’m going to go ahead and assume that I’ve done a lot more casual fucking than you have.”
That got a surprised little snort out of her.
“I’ve… I’ve always been a boyfriend girl.”
“Figured. I’ve never been a girlfriend guy.”
“I know. And I knew that before…”
“Which is why,” I cut her off before she could blame herself for being conflicted and confused just because she knew I slept around a lot before getting involved with me, “I can tell you from experience that there is nothing confusing about fucking. Even fucking someone over and over. When it’s just fucking, that’s all it is.
“You know how it is with the club girls. Could fuck the same girl a couple times a month for a year and still not feel anything. Same goes for her. Because that’s all it is and all it’ll ever be.”
“I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that,” she admitted.
“I know. But you can trust me on this part is what I’m getting at. Casual is casual. But this,” I said, running my hand up and down her arm, “this hasn’t just been casual. And I’m confused about it, so I get why you’re feeling some sort of way about it too, without that experience.”