Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
I arch into him, and he gives me all of himself. Every thrust. Every fierce sound that leaves his lips. His agony is a match only to mine, which he eases when he makes me come, not once, but twice around him.
The spasms are still ricocheting through my body when he unleashes with a painful growl, releasing himself inside me with one word so full of finality, it breaks me.
“Mine.”
He buries his face into my neck, inhaling me as his hands move over the curve of my belly. And I can’t help it. My chest heaves as painful emotions erupt from me with a sob.
Judge freezes, pulling back to look at me with terror in his eyes. “Mercedes?”
“Why do you keep doing this to me?” I cry. “Why can’t you just let me go?”
He pulls away from me, and I feel the loss of his warmth, the loss of our connection as he hauls himself to the edge of the bed and averts his gaze. His head hangs heavy, his back muscles rippling with tension as he drags a hand through his hair.
“I can’t.” His choked response invokes a renewed combination of anger and heartache.
“Why?” I demand. “Why, Lawson? Fucking tell me.”
“Because goddammit.” He turns to look at me, eyes filled with a fire he’s never let me see. “I fucking love you, Mercedes. Can’t you understand that?”
Those words tear through my armor, lodge deep in my heart, and fragment as I release another quiet sob. This one is something else entirely.
“You love me?”
“Yes,” he rumbles. “I fucking love you. I have loved you… longer than you could ever know. You’re carrying my babies. I’m inside you. And I can’t let you go. I won’t apologize for it. If you want Clifton, that’s too goddamn bad because it’s not happening—”
“Then why?” I cut him off.
His eyes move over my face, searching. “Why what?”
“Why won’t you let yourself have me?”
He turns away then, shielding his emotions while he processes them. When he does finally respond, his voice is so brittle, it’s barely audible.
“Because the thought of losing you for good fucking paralyzes me. And if I fuck it up, when I fuck it up, I know I won’t survive that loss.”
His words stun me into silence, and at the same time, they confuse me. All this time, this is what he’s been afraid of? He’s keeping me away to protect himself from something he’s already doing to himself? To both of us.
“You’ve already pushed me away,” I tell him. “How is that any different?”
His head dips in defeat. “It’s not. I thought it would be if I was controlling when or how it happened, but it’s not any different. You’re too good to be real. It’s impossible to allow myself to think, even for a second, that I could actually have something like this. But I can’t let you go either. I’ve tried. Fuck, I have tried.”
I sit up and move to him slowly, terrified he might flee at any moment. But he doesn’t. Even when he feels my hands wrap around him from behind, my lips pressing against a scar on his naked back. A scar he bore for me.
“Lawson?”
He shivers beneath my touch, and I grab his face, turning him to look at me. His eyes are soft and vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen, and I know something has shifted. This isn’t a fleeting glance. He’s giving me the key, unlocking himself, and he’s letting me in.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
He shudders, pain twisting his features, and it’s only then I understand why this is so hard for him. All this time, I couldn’t make sense of it, but it was staring me in the face. He told me about his family. The betrayal he felt from his brother. The coldness I’ve seen in his mother when she looks at him. The agony he feels over letting her down. Everyone he’s ever loved has let him down and made him feel unworthy. Why would he think I’d be any different?
That realization wrenches my heart, twisting me up inside as I squeeze him in my grasp, trying to convey the intensity I feel for him.
“I love you,” I tell him again. “And I always will. No matter how much you piss me off. No matter how much we fight. Regardless of what the future brings, you are imprinted on me. Do you understand that? You are and always will be the one person who makes me feel this way.” I crawl onto his lap, bringing his fingers to the beating pulse of my racing heart. “That song is just for you, Lawson Montgomery. Nobody else gets that.”
He cups the back of my skull in his palm, drags me to him, and kisses me. It’s a kiss of possession. Of claiming. But something deeper. Something unbreakable. And that tether that binds us will always be. I know it. He knows it. And we give in to it, for real this time.