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)
“It doesn’t matter if I have to watch you go with another man and if I have to cut myself every single minute of every single day just to stop myself from fuckin’ him up because you smiled at him; I’ll still do it. I’ll walk through fire. I’ll walk through land rigged with explosives. If it means I get to be able to look at you. So you wanna ignore me, you go ahead and ignore me. You don’t wanna look at me, you go ahead and look somewhere else. You can walk by me and pretend I’m dead. You can go about your fuckin’ day like I don’t exist. It’ll kill me but I’ll take it. I’m not leavin’, because I’m branded. You branded me when you saved my life. So I’m not leavin’ and you need to get that through your head and stop actin’ foolish.”
You know what, fuck it. How dare he? How dare he throw my words back at me and call himself branded when he doesn’t even know the meaning of it. When he doesn’t even know how much it hurts me to ignore him and pretend he doesn’t exist. So without thinking it through, I launch myself at him. I don’t care that Colt is still coughing and wheezing somewhere close to us. I don’t care that we’re in the middle of a sidewalk and even though we were alone up until now, anyone could walk by and see a crazy girl in a pink dress beating on a huge cowboy who doesn’t do anything to stop her.
He simply gives my foolhardy launch a safe place to land, his chest. He simply keeps me plastered to it with his arm around my waist as I keep punching him and smacking him and scratching his jaw and his face. And as I do it, I hear myself sob. I hear myself cry and chant how much I hate him. How he makes everything so hard. How he always, always does that. And if this is his way of protecting me and keeping me safe, then he’s not really doing a good job of it, because he keeps hurting me himself.
I don’t know how long I keep displaying my wrath, but at some point, I run out of steam and slump against his chest. I burrow my nose in his pecs and breathe him in, my lungs filling with his musky, outdoorsy smell, my tired body and battered heart resting in the cradle of his flexing arms. I realize we aren’t on the sidewalk anymore but in the alley. I can see the brick wall he’s leaning against as he rocks me back and forth.
Despite everything, my heart thinks it’s poetic. It started in an alley when he grabbed me, so it should end in one too. Swallowing, I look up and our eyes tangle. “I hate you.”
His chest shudders. “I know.”
I look at the scratches on his face, especially a big one on his jaw. “I drew blood.”
“I deserve more.”
I clutch his T-shirt. “You’re never going to leave, are you?”
He squeezes his arms around my waist and his voice sounds almost sad, as if he’s delivering bad news. “No.”
“Do you…” I twist his T-shirt, my heart racing in my chest. “Do you really love me?”
His eyes become liquid and shiny, and he squeezes me to his body again. “Yeah.”
“You don’t know what love is,” I tell him.
Something like pain crosses his face and his breath hitches. “No.”
I dig my knuckles into his chest and go up on my tiptoes. “So then how come you’re the only one who knows how to love me?”
He watches me for a beat, his eyes going back and forth between mine. When he understands what he’s looking at in my eyes, on my face, he brings his hand up to my face and shakes his head. “Oh, darlin’, no. Don’t you do it. Don’t you forgive—”
“So you’ve been cutting yourself?” I speak over him.
He’s cupping my jaw with the same hand and he swallows. “Pain helps me focus.”
My heart drops to my stomach. “How often?”
His thumb rubs my cheek. “Only when I can’t control the urge to see you. To bury my good intentions and bust down doors to go to you. To watch you sleep. To cut through a crowd and hunt you down to touch you.” Then, after a pause and with his thumb still caressing my skin: “Bein’ good don’t come easy to me, darlin’, but I’m tryin’ and I’ll be damned if I’ll fail.”
It takes me a few seconds to catch my breath, but when I do, I strain my legs to stand even taller. “You’re going to stop.”
He frowns. “What?”
“Cutting yourself,” I order. “And you’re going to go see someone about your PTSD.” Before he can protest, I say, “I’m not going to argue with you about it. You’ve done it your way and now it’s going to be my way.”