Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
If not for her sniffle, he might not have looked down in enough time to see her wipe at her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” Malachi said as he rolled back into her. Their limbs tangled under the blankets all over again as he urged her, “Come here, let me hold you.”
It took her a few seconds to mutter a low, “Sorry.”
“For what?”
She refused to lift her face from under his chin. “It’s silly, I guess. I was planning the week like we’d have more time.”
He hugged her close. One hand up the back of her sports bra, and another tight on her warm, soft hip. “Come on, we will,” he insisted, his mouth pressed against the top of her head. Just not here; not right now, he refused to add out loud. Malachi had time to work those details out. “We’ll find some time to carve out for each other. If we want to, it’ll be there.”
Cheesy, maybe, but true.
They’d gotten this far, so that had to count for something.
“Well,” came her mumbled, sad reply, “what time are you going?”
He squeezed her a little harder.
“I don’t know, probably early.”
Which meant most definitely.
Gracen’s shoulders shrunk down even more.
“Don’t do that,” he told her, planting a kiss on her head.
A sigh answered him back, but she didn't pull away.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he urged.
Although, he almost certainly knew the answer.
Gracen stayed quiet until Malachi forced her hand by rolling them both her way. With his lower half fitted tight between her open thighs, he used his arms to loom over her laughing form on the bed. Their movement knocked the duvet down around them.
“I do have work in the morning, you know,” she said, her hands curving around both his wrists.
“Mmhmm, in a bit,” Malachi agreed before he dropped a kiss on the soft skin on the high points of both her cheeks.
Then, he placed one to her lips.
Gracen’s smile stretched wide while her legs wrapped around his waist to hook at heels on his back. “Just say you want sex.”
“I do,” he admitted—with her, always—unashamed, “but I also want you to tell me what’s on your mind. It doesn’t help to stuff it down, and I don’t want you to do that with me, babe. I can’t make it better if you do that to me.”
She stilled under his gaze. Nervousness fettered over her pursing lips.
“If you’re heading out tomorrow, you can’t make it better, anyway,” she explained quietly.
“Try me.”
He just had to push.
The woman beneath him finally broke.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like I needed someone to stay, so it’s hard to know that asking you to do so won’t make it real. Maybe I need some time to figure out how that makes me feel, or what it really means. A part of me doesn’t want to need someone at all, but I don’t think it’s normal to feel like that, either.”
They both faced their own double-edged swords, apparently, even if the weapons didn’t look the same. It felt cruelly fair for hers to hurt him, too, especially when his secrets would undoubtedly do the same to Gracen.
The truth had to hurt.
For Malachi, it wasn’t anything new.
Gracen blinked away another stray tear that disappeared before it finished falling down her cheek, and said, “I don’t like being sad with you. Five minutes ago, we were great.” Her hands grabbed tighter to his wrists. “Can’t we go back to that place?”
Could he pretend—isn’t that what she really meant to say?
For her ... well, he could.
He would.
Tonight.
Chapter 30
Gracen awoke before her alarm clock made her do it. She blinked, listening to make sure the familiar high pitch beep-beep-beep wasn’t the reason for her interrupted slumber, but no. The bedroom was too quiet. Too dark. With all the shades still pulled, not even the morning sunlight could filter into the room to wake Gracen.
It wasn’t her alarm.
Gracen rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms. She blinked again. A cold bed hugged her spine, and air found her hands when she searched with one arm on the other side of the bed. That’s how she knew. The white stucco on the ceiling looked back at Gracen, and she felt the realization settle even heavier into her heart. She didn’t even need to turn in the bed to prove her instincts right.
The bed was empty except for her.
Gracen woke up alone.
Briefly, she considered it might just be the bed that was empty and not the room. She consciously chose to ignore the new ache in her heart that said she was wrong while she sat straight up in the bed to survey the dimly lit bedroom. Hoping all at the same time that she would find Malachi lacing up his combat boots at the end of her bed like the morning before, grinning in that way of his. She adored it so much.