Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“I want you here,” I say. “And there are more of us. I’m sure Elaina and Maya would love you once they got to know you.”
His lips quirk up on one side in a humorless smile. “And how would that work? We’d sneak into the café after dark through the back door? I’d get to socialize with a group of much younger women with the curtains drawn like some kind of cult leader? Or maybe I could hide in the back of your pickup truck on the way to the beach party and come out once you’d made sure the coast was clear and no Sullivans were there to see me.”
Taking his meaning, I exhale a frustrated breath. “You don’t want your family to know, either. You said so. Hell, you said you didn’t want anyone in town to know. You wanted me to sneak onto your boat after dark and leave before morning, like some shameful secret.”
“Things change,” he says, his voice rough as he steps closer, his entire body suddenly vibrating with energy. “You aren’t a shameful secret. You’re…”
“I’m what?” I ask, the tears slipping down my cheeks no matter how hard I try to stop them.
“You’re all I want,” he says, the wall behind his eyes finally falling away, revealing the pain beneath. “All I think about. Every moment of every day, no matter what I’m doing, if you’re not there, it feels hollow. An exercise in fucking futility. Step after step down the wrong path. Nothing feels real or good until I share it with you.”
I gulp, my tears falling faster as he wraps his hands around my upper arms.
“I crave the sound of your voice in my ears,” he rasps. “I dream about your mouth, your laughter, your hand in mine. I dream about holding your damned hand, Sully. Not fucking you or your mouth wrapped around my dick.” I’m shocked to see tears shining in his eyes as he adds, “I dream about walking through Central Park with you and…knowing you’re mine.”
“Come here,” I whisper, trying to reach for him.
But he holds me at a distance, shaking his head. “But I can’t kidnap you from your life like some Viking on a raid.” His hands slide down to grip my wrists. “You would have to want it. Truly want it, with every part of you. And you’d have to be open to change, whether we can make this work for the long term or not.”
He hesitates, despair tinging his voice again as he says, “And you don’t want it. You don’t want to leave this town or your friends or family. You don’t want to change careers or go back to school in the city.” He releases my wrists. “Hell, you don’t even want to tell the people you love that I’m part of your life. I’m the one who’s the shameful secret, not you. It’s never been you.”
“You don’t want to leave your life, either,” I shoot back, but there’s no heat in my voice.
I’m too soggy to sound angry. And I’m not angry, not with him anyway. A part of me is overjoyed that he feels the way I do. But the other part is still thinking logically, the way it has since I was that kid who woke up to find her parents were gone and taking care of herself was now her full-time job.
This isn’t me versus Weaver.
This is me and Weaver versus Fate, and Fate is proving to be a real bitch.
“You don’t want to move back to Sea Breeze and get an apartment with me or hang out with my ‘much younger’ friends,” I say, using his own words against him. “You would be bored to tears in a month. You’d get sick of how early I get up to go to work and probably hate whatever job you’d be able to get here and eventually you’d—”
“I wouldn’t have to get a new job,” he cuts in, startling me.
“What?”
“I already spoke to my superiors,” he says, but still with that hopeless note in his voice. “I can work remotely for as long as I need or want to do so. I would have to make trips into the city every once and a while for meetings, but I could live in Sea Breeze full time or…anywhere else, really.”
I sniff and take a breath, rolling his words over in my head. “You… You really did that? You asked about staying?”
He nods. “I did. And if that were the only issue, I would. But it’s not.”
Fuck. He’d move to Sea Breeze. For me. He would give up his Mr. Fancy lifestyle and come back to a hometown he hates. For me.
No one’s ever inconvenienced themselves in the slightest to be my man. And here Weaver is, ready to abandon everything for a chance with me, Gertie from the docks, a woman with biceps larger than those of half the men downstairs and nothing to offer him but myself.