Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“JJ, stop!” Cass shouted. His hands wrestled mine away from my hair. He was crouching in front of me but as soon as I tried to crawl away from him, he dropped his body so his weight was pinning me down. I fought like a wild animal, but it was all to no avail.
“Let me go, Cass. Please,” I begged when fight joined flight in leaving my body. I was weak and wrecked. I didn’t know up from down or left from right. I couldn’t see anything because my eyes hurt so bad from the tears. Despite begging Cass to release me, I wouldn’t have been able to move if he had. At most, I would have lain down on the dirty linoleum floor and wished for the silence of death that had threatened to take me two years earlier.
“JJ, look at me. I need you to understand why I had to stop what was about to happen between us,” Cass ordered.
Five minutes ago, I would have complied with the order to look at him. Instead, I tucked my head against my right arm as best as I could considering Cass still had a hold of me. Thankfully, the tears had stopped, or at least slowed, but it didn’t really matter. I wouldn’t be able to pull myself together as long as he loomed over me.
“Goddamn it, look at me!” Cass shouted. I flinched at the anger in his voice. I reminded myself that he had the right to be angry with me. He had the right to hate me for everything I’d let happen to him.
I owed him a response and if the response was that he wanted me to look at him, so be it. Sitting on that bathroom floor, covered in tears and God only knew what else, my skin red and hot, I could easily say I’d never been at a lower point in my entire life. I would have gladly taken the moment Cass had found me in the alley behind Tank’s over what was happening now.
“Don’t you fucking do this to me again,” Cass practically snarled when I was slow to respond to his demand. I wasn’t sure what he meant but it didn’t matter. I lifted my eyes to meet his. I could barely see him through the remaining blur of tears that hadn’t fallen. When I lifted my arm a little, I was surprised to find that Cass released it. I used my sleeve to wipe my face as best as I could. The move meant I could see Cass better.
I was stunned to see silent tears sliding down his face.
Oh God, had I inadvertently hurt him when I’d been trying to escape his hold? I hadn’t thought I’d done any damage to him, but what if I had?
“Cass—” I croaked.
“It’s not safe for me, JJ,” he growled.
I wasn’t sure I heard him right until he repeated the words. Even then, I had no clue what he was talking about. Had he found something out and whoever had shot me was hunting him now? All of my humiliation was swept away like it had never been.
“Oh God, Cass, who—”
Cass closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s you, JJ. I’m not safe from you.”
The admission had me releasing him and pulling back but I didn’t have anywhere to go.
“No… no, I would never—” I stammered before Cass placed his fingers gently over my mouth to silence me. He looked completely broken. A shell of who he’d once been. I didn’t want him to say any more because it was starting to make sense now. He’d prevented me from leaving the dingy little bathroom because he’d wanted to explain why he’d backed off instead of kissing me. He wasn’t afraid of me giving him something I’d picked up from some stranger.
It was so much worse than that.
Every part of me froze when Cass dropped his eyes, pulled his hand back and shook his head in mute acceptance of whatever he was about to say.
“I’ve lost you twice now, JJ. I just… I can’t do it again.”
CHAPTER 21
Cass
As much as I wanted to take the words back, I couldn’t. Just like everything else when it came to JJ, I’d fucked things up again.
For one, I never should have dragged him into a place that was so small that there’d be no way to keep my hands off him.
Second, I most definitely shouldn’t have tried to fool myself into believing I could have JJ in my arms again and then just as easily let him go when our desires were momentarily satiated. He’d pretty much given me the green light to do what I wanted by suggesting we ignore the boundary line that was keeping us apart.
Finally, and most of all, I shouldn’t have been anywhere near JJ to begin with. I shouldn’t have been sitting in my rental car night after night watching Sully’s men build a safe perimeter around his home. I hadn’t even been able to physically see JJ on any of those nights and yet I’d kept returning to the same spot simply so I could be near him.