Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 474(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 474(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
He faces me, his eyes pleading with me to continue.
“I keep thinking, ‘What if,’ but it doesn’t matter. What I’ve learned over the past few years is that today is all you have. And that’s been reinforced these past few weeks. This moment is all that’s promised to any of us and you can’t live in the past . . .”
He takes the distance between us in a couple of steps. He kneels in front of me so we’re face-to-face. “What am I to you?” he asks again, his voice soft.
“You . . .”
“What am I to you?”
“You’re the first boy I ever loved,” I whisper, a nervous laugh in my voice.
“What about now?”
I know what he is to me. I’ve buried it, ignored it, fought it, and pretended it didn’t exist. Maybe it didn’t for a time in my life, but that was then.
And this . . . this beautiful man in front of me, this man I may have pegged wrong for so many years out of fear or frustration, I’m not sure . . . is my now. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how or if it’ll work out. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. But what I do know is that I do, in fact, love him. I’m not sure what that means or how he’ll respond or if it even matters, but if I’m being honest, I do. And he deserves to know that. I deserve to know that.
“You’re the first boy I ever loved,” I breathe. “And the man I love now—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence before his lips are on mine.
THIRTY-FIVE
CREW
I regret a lot of the things I’ve done, but I’m one hundred percent sure I’ll never regret this.
Her lips are soft against mine, sweeter than I even remembered. She tenses for a split second and then relaxes into me, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her lips move with mine and it’s pure fucking heaven. I don’t want to break the kiss, but I do. I have to.
I rest my forehead against hers, listening to her ragged breaths. I’m sure mine sound the same, but I can’t hear it because I’m concentrating on remembering everything about this moment. Her sounds, her smell, the feel of her in my arms. My body trembles with excitement. I have to talk myself down from letting myself go and losing myself in the moment with her.
When I pull back, I have no idea what she’s gonna say. I know she wasn’t expecting that, but she said she loves me. Whether that was a mistake or not, the kiss we just shared wasn’t.
With more apprehension than I’ve felt in my life, I rock back onto my heels and peer up at her. I study her face, looking for any sign that I’ve pushed her too far. I’ll apologize if I did, but I won’t really be sorry. How could I?
Her eyes are wide, her gorgeous lips parted. I run my thumb against them, stroking her bottom lip. She presses them together and against the pad of my finger and I let it linger for a moment longer than I anticipated.
She returns the grin on my face, her cheeks turning pink.
“Even if you’re pissed about that, it was worth it.”
She turns another shade of pink and grabs my face in her hands. Her touch lights up every cell in my body, and warmth floods through me like wildfire. She bends forward and kisses me, her lips moving with mine like they’d been there a million times before. Like they belong there.
Jules pulls back and I can see the same feeling running through me alive in her eyes. It’s the first time in years I’ve seen the gold flecks sparkle in the dark irises.
“Crew . . .” she whispers, her voice needy. “I . . .”
“I’m giving you a choice, Jules,” I say, my voice wavering as I try to stay composed. “If this goes any further, then that’s it . . . you’re mine.”
“Okay,” she whispers.
“Be sure about this. I’m going to think about you every minute of every day. I will be jealous over everything you do. There will be no turning back.”
“No turning back.” She wraps her arms around me again, her mouth finding mine.
I stiffen for a split second in a moment of shock. This woman is all I’ve ever wanted. This woman is the bane of my existence and the reason I live, all wrapped in one beautiful package. Not having her is the reason I’ve wanted to die, yet it was a choice I made because I loved her so damn much. To have her back in my arms was something I never dreamed would actually happen. It’s something that I never thought should happen. But things change and here we are.