Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
He chuckles against my skin, absently kissing the ball of my shoulder. “I tried to tell you.”
As much as I enjoy being his little spoon, I wiggle out of his grasp enough so that I can roll over to face him. I want a kiss, and I need to be close to him, so I hook my leg around him and pull myself close, then I lean in to give him a little kiss.
“I love this,” I tell him, cuddling even closer.
“So do I,” he murmurs, sounding much more thoughtful, but maybe it’s just because he was sleepy. He was out late, and then he spent his time at home showering and fucking me, so the poor guy has only slept for a few hours.
“We should go to bed early tonight,” I decide.
“Agreed.”
Tilting my head up so I can meet his gaze, I ask, “Do you go home for the holidays?”
I’m wondering how much time we have, what the future will look like for us. We haven’t technically even been on a single date, but here we are tangled up in bed together, so that’s gotta be something, right?
Plus, he told me all that stuff about the Blue Bloods, about how it can be difficult to date one. Why bother if he had no intention of actually dating me?
It feels like we’re dating even without the dates. We’re temporarily living together, and we definitely like each other.
I could see a future with him, and I wonder if he does, too.
He looks a little guarded when he nods, but I know he has mentioned having conflicted feelings about his family, so I guess that’s probably why.
With a slightly playful smile, I ask, “Have you ever taken a girl home before?”
I already suspect the answer, but he confirms it when he shakes his head. “Nope.”
“I haven’t either.”
“You haven’t taken a girl home before?” he teases.
I roll my eyes good-naturedly. “A guy. When I was younger, I loved the holidays—which isn’t unique or anything, but I don’t just mean the ones where you get presents. Presents are cool, but what I enjoy about the holidays is mainly that downtime and togetherness with people you love. The bonding time, you know? The feeling of family.”
Nodding thoughtfully, he says, “I can see how that would be nice. Holidays never felt like that to me.”
“I haven’t felt it in a while myself. I don’t go home for the holidays anymore, but I look forward to a day when I have a family of my own to celebrate with every year. I know you don’t believe in marriage,” I say lightly, “but do you plan on having a family at least?”
“I never said I didn’t believe in marriage.”
I hesitate, going back in my memory for the thing that made me think that. “I guess you didn’t, but you said you don’t believe in love. I took that to mean you were anti-marriage, too.”
He shakes his head faintly. “Love and marriage are separate things. Marriage is a commitment you make to someone, to build a life with them, to always be there for them, and they will do the same in return. I’m not afraid of a well-made commitment. I even like them in some capacity because they let you know exactly what you can expect. Love is much more fickle. People fall in and out of love all the fucking time. It seems worthless to me, honestly. People who follow their hearts alone can’t be depended on, and the way I’m setting my life up… There’s no place for undependable people. I want to know who’s in my corner, and I don’t want them to be there because they were in the mood to be for a moment, because then what happens when their mood changes?” He shakes his head more firmly. “I like to know exactly what I’m getting into, what’s expected of me and what I’ll get in return.”
I smile faintly, caressing his jaw. “I’m not sure that’s how life works.”
“It’s how my life’s going to work,” he states.
I know his parents’ rocky marriage clearly impacted his view of love, so I can understand his severity about it. I know deep down it’s really fear, and I get that, too.
“I think you have to trust someone a lot to marry them, and even if you do, you can be completely wrong about them. Someone you believe will be reliable can change their mind, or you can find out things about them they hid from you while you were getting to know each other. People guard their secrets, and even if they share some of them… can you ever really know someone else?”
“I think you can,” he says, his gaze fixed on my shoulder, but then his gaze shifts to mine. “This is more stuff I shouldn’t tell you, but the Blue Bloods have a set procedure for bringing in a new member and building trust quickly. It’s like you said, people guard themselves and their secrets, and that’s the biggest barrier to finding out who someone really is. So we exchange secrets right up front. Blue Bloods can’t hide from each other, so we make it so we don’t have to. It would never work if we weren’t genuinely bonded to and invested in one another. We make the stakes high so people take it seriously. It’s not a club you join or leave as you please. If you take the oath, you’re a Blue Blood for life. Only way out is death, same as a marriage—well, in theory, but Blue Bloods take their commitments to each other more seriously than a marriage. There aren’t real stakes in getting married for most people. It’s not a true commitment it’s just what they feel like doing at the time and then they quit if they change their mind later. But there’s no option to quit being a Blue Blood, so you have to mean it when you opt in. And people know that, so they do. They know there’s no out, so they put more effort into making it work. I think my membership with them is part of why I don’t feel that way about marriage. I know how a commitment can look with like-minded people. I’ve seen it work if you focus on the nuts and bolts without emotion clouding anyone’s judgment. My brothers and I, we don’t love each other, but we are committed to each other. We’d kill for each other. We can always count on one another to show up, and that’s because we made a logical choice to, not because we give each other butterflies,” he says mockingly.