Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Grabbing an old canvas jacket that I used in the garden on bitter winter days, I locked up and sprinted back to Zander’s side.
He blinked as if I’d made him speechless. “You weren’t kidding. You truly want to come?”
That word.
Come.
The way he said it sounded so similar to how X had growled it last night. Heavy and thick, an innocent word turned into something sinfully erotic.
My pulse picked up as I narrowed my eyes.
Sunlight blinded me as I studied Zander all over again.
I tried to picture him with a baseball cap and mask on—of him hugging me or slipping down my body to stick his tongue between my legs.
And I couldn’t.
“Lucky for you then, huh? You let one finger fuck you last night, and now you’re riding another one today. See? You are a slut.”
I shuddered at the memory of Milton throwing me onto the coffee table and laughing as I fell, bleeding and bruised, onto the carpet. All my carefree hope that I was healing screeched to a halt.
Everything turned dark.
Shadows crept over the sunshine.
Tears stung my eyes, and my fingers stroked the fading lacerations on my wrist, left behind from fighting for my life.
I didn’t notice Zander swinging his leg off his bike.
I didn’t function as a person as he came close, yanked off his gloves, then cupped my cheek with a gentle hand.
I shuddered at the contact.
I swayed backward to run.
But then his thumb swept through the tears tracking slowly, and with the softest smile, he stepped into me. “You’re safe. He’s not here.” His strong, lean arms wrapped around me, loose and open but providing a protective wall between me and the past.
Everything hit me all at once.
The urge to scream and hide.
The desire to sob and crumple.
The nonsensical homecoming and familiarity.
X had shattered me apart last night and given me back my sexuality. But as Zander stepped a little closer and his arms tightened a little harder, I shattered in my soul.
My head fell forward and landed on his chest.
His voice rumbled with words I couldn’t understand, and his boots collided with my paint-splattered sneakers. His embrace switched from tentative to smothering. He gathered me up and sheltered me with every bone in his body.
And I didn’t panic.
I sagged with relief and gratefulness.
I let him hold me all while silent tears swelled and spilled, purging my mind and heart from yet another layer of hell.
He never moved or spoke, giving me all the time I needed to break, reform, and find my feet again.
Finally, when I felt a little saner, and Milton no longer yelled obscenities in my mind, I pulled away.
He let me go instantly.
Taking a step back, he pushed his glasses higher up his nose and stuck both hands in his back pockets as if preventing himself from reaching for me.
He didn’t speak, but our eyes sought each other, and something happened.
A web of true friendship. A connection that’d always been there.
Zander had always been there in the background. A nuisance, a distraction, a crush.
I froze.
That’s right…I-I had a crush on him.
I’d been fourteen or so.
I’d overheard Nana and her best-friend Mary giggling that their dastardly plan to finally hear wedding bells between the Norths and the Roses was working.
I’d torn my eyes away from watching Zander in the garden and asked what they meant. Both women had broken into obnoxiously loud laughter, pointing at Zander where he pressure washed the bird bath, then at me blushing because I’d been spying.
With the sun hitting the water droplets and the mist dancing rainbows all around him, Zander transformed from the annoying boy next door into something far, far more interesting. He’d been twenty then and already on the path to becoming a doctor. I’d felt woefully young when we’d gone for that visit.
My heart had fluttered as he’d looked over his shoulder, almost as if he sensed me gawking at him. He’d waved just once and given me a crooked half-smile. With his glasses sliding down his nose and his shocking red hair, I’d blushed ten times worse and darted to my room.
I’d dreamed of kissing him that night, and when I woke, I suffered a full-blown crush.
Only to have that crush obliterated when I confessed to my mother that if Nana and Mary had already picked out my husband, did that mean I could marry him straight away instead of finishing school?
“I know it’s hard to stop thinking about him, but…he’s gone,” Zander whispered gently. “He can’t touch you again.”
His voice sliced through my thoughts. I blinked. Forcing myself to be as honest in person as I was by text to X, I shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking about Milton, actually.” I caught his emerald stare. “I was thinking about you.”
His eyebrows flew up. “Me?”
“When you were twenty and I was fourteen.”
He scowled. “Did I piss you off like I usually did?”