Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Darby is far too smart. She has my number, alright. She grasps my shoulders and rolls on top of me, sitting up and straddling my hips through our clothes. My cock jerks violently in my jeans, and I make a noise in my throat that I can’t suppress. But she’s not interested in that right now. Or maybe not at this minute. She blocks the light completely with her body, and all I can see when I look up is her face.
“Monsters beget monsters,” I blurt. It’s my deepest fear. The key to all the fucking doors inside me, and I just put it out there, feeding it to the air like a true imbecile.
No. I gave it to her.
Darby’s hands hover near my shoulders. “What does that mean?” Are you okay? That’s what she’s really asking. The answer, as always, is no.
“Monsters aren’t born. They’re created. Nature and nurture are against me, Darby. You have to know that. I have my father’s genetics, and I have his training. I could just snap at any time. You’re not safe with me.”
Her hands finally land, and her fingers curl into my T-shirt. “That’s not true. I mean, yes, you have his genetics, and yes, he did terrible things to you, but that’s not true for everyone. Some people who are hurt growing up take the opposite path. They become protectors. They want to change society. They’re driven to make sure what happened to them doesn’t happen to anyone else.” She licks her bottom lip, and my body reacts ferally, my hips bucking under her.
“You don’t have the sense that god gave a goose.” I’ve always hated that saying, so I don’t know why I’m saying it now.
“You would never hurt me. You would never hurt anyone. You offered yourself up as a sacrifice. You did the exact opposite.”
This is getting out of control. Because I want to take her face and kiss her until neither of us can breathe, and I’m lost. I want to lose myself in her. Again. More. Always. I want to take those vows seriously, and I want to keep her. I want to keep Darby, but this isn’t about keeping anyone, and that’s an issue. That’s a fucking issue I need to remedy and fast because no version of our future works out as a happily ever after.
There is no future with me. I am futureless.
“You’re crazy,” I hiss, mustering up some of the cruelty that Darby doesn’t think exists in me. “If I gave you a contract that said you had to take care of my tired, sick, painful, and grouchy ass for the rest of your life, you would be so pathetically eager to sign on that line, wouldn’t you?”
Darby doesn’t flinch. “You’re being a jerk.” Yeah, I am. “Here’s a news flash. I already signed. It’s called marriage. Or did you miss the whole sickness and health and better or worse until we’re freaking dead part?”
“It was fake.”
“It was legally binding.”
“I won’t hold you to it,” I counter.
Darby’s gentle, sweet, warm hands bracket my face for the thousandth time since we’ve been here. There is a storm raging in her eyes that she isn’t setting free. Not yet. That fire in her, the sparks crackling in the room, that’s what I didn’t mean to unleash. I wanted her anger and disgust, not this. Not her passion. “If you fucked me six ways to Sunday, I would enjoy every bit of it and pray that Sunday never came. You don’t want to let me in. I know you’ve been hurt so badly that you think you can’t trust anyone but yourself. You think the best parts of you were beaten out of you, and you have so little to offer, but you need to stop going to that place. You need to stop hiding behind walls and walls and more walls. You don’t need to go there with me.”
I grasp her hips hard but carefully so as not to hurt her. Her eyes widen. “You’ve obliterated those walls.”
“You are not a stray cat, even if you hiss like one and happen to like fish.” I can’t help it. My lips curl at the edges, and she sees it. “There you are,” she whispers.
“You are everything I shouldn’t want, and I am no good for you,” I groan, aching so fiercely that I feel ill.
“Too bad.” She wriggles against me. “I want you anyway.” She gets a serious expression almost immediately. “Please don’t call yourself a monster. That’s not what you are, and I can’t bear it.” She shifts down, but not away.
She gets her hands, warm and soft like her, underneath my shirt and peels it up. I help her, tugging it off before collapsing back against the bed. She kisses me on every part of my skin that has a scar, every inch of me. She kisses my heart, letting her lips linger on the fluttering beat. Then, she kisses lower, down my ribs, and I jerk because I can’t help it.