Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Colby pulled in a knee, blinking at me. Then he burst out laughing.
It unnerved me, seeing him laughing like that, having that ability so soon after venturing into the darkest part of his past. I admired that about him. Admired him.
“Maybe,” he agreed when he finished laughing. “But I think he’s done more for me than his estranged daddy.”
I shook my head, smiling although I hadn’t thought it was possible just moments ago. In this life.
I crawled up to him, unable to stand the distance between us anymore. He immediately put his arms around me, and I felt safe. Whole.
“I’m so sorry about Alyssa,” I whispered.
He stroked my hair. “She would’ve liked you.”
I tilted my head upward to look at him. “Even though I’ve been torturing you for years?” I was only half teasing.
“Especially because you’ve been torturing me for years,” he smiled. “She always thought I needed a challenge with girls.”
I grinned back. “I bet I would’ve liked her too. I nestled into his chest.
Though I’d thought I’d never feel close to another human being again, that I’d always be alone, whoever I was with, I had never felt closer to Colby.
It was dark, nearing midnight. Or after. I didn’t know which. I’d dozed off against Colby’s chest after he’d told me about Alyssa, both to sleep off the booze I’d consumed and because I was exhausted in general.
But my sleep had been thin. I’d been conscious of Colby’s arms around me, and I knew that he was watching me close enough to see that I wasn’t completely out.
“I’m hungry,” I’d muttered at some point.
Colby had immediately jumped into action. Which meant I jumped into action since we were tangled up in each other. He had informed me that he wasn’t letting me out of his sight. I’d moaned about it while I dressed, but I’d secretly been glad I wasn’t going to be in this room alone.
We’d picked up cheeseburgers we’d eaten in bed. It felt gluttonous and glorious.
The TV was playing reruns of Shark Tank, and I was once again splayed on Colby, still wearing his shirt.
He was wearing nothing but his underwear. I’d been lazily trailing a pattern over each of his tattoos. Some of them were what you’d expect from a biker... Skulls, flames, that kind of thing. Most of them were connected with his heritage, I guessed. There was script in Korean, a roaring lion, then the dragon. The only splash of color was the streaks of red in the ornate design. Just like his bike.
I wanted to ask about it. Know more.
“You’re not going back to Garnett now, are you?” I asked instead of the question I was really curious about.
“Nope,” he answered immediately.
“That’s what I feared,” I muttered. Which, unbeknownst to Colby, was a complete lie. My real fear was the exact opposite. That he’d come here on some kind of mission, out of some warped sense of responsibility to make sure I wasn’t completely self-destructing—which I was optimistic enough to say I wasn’t—and then he got to fuck me again as a bonus before he left, after fulfilling his duty.
That was undervaluing who he was as a person. But I liked to live in the worst possible scenario now, rather than have any hope or faith. If you believed that the best would come to you, when life showed you how bad it could get, it hurt that much more.
I used to be all about affirmations and the Law of Attraction, and look what happened to me.
“You knew I was going to find you,” he murmured. “And you knew I wasn’t going to let you go.”
I traced a dagger on his chest with my finger. Yeah, I had known that. In the back of my mind. Wasn’t that why I was running?
“I can’t go back there, not yet,” I admitted. It was a shameful thing to say out loud. I’d been gone for so long already, put my entire life on pause to roam around the country and accomplish nothing more than damaging my liver.
“I know,” Colby said without judgment.
He was being so understanding. Kind. Tender. It was infuriating and gave me no foothold to start an argument with him. Especially since he’d shared about his sister. It was inescapable to me now, knowing that my own badass biker was broken in his own way. And despite the state I was in, I didn’t want to make that worse.
“You want us to be together,” I said.
“We are together,” he rumbled against my hair.
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean,” he sighed. “And I stand by what I said. We are together now. And as far as I’m concerned, we’ve been together for a long fuckin’ time.”
There it was. A foothold for me to get pissed off.