“You can’t even see it. I’m the safest thing you’ll ever find”
“I see enough. I saw you.”
“I wouldn’t have waited this long for you. I would have already showed up at your dorm the minute I decided I wanted you. I wouldn’t leave until I convinced you that you were mine”
“I thought you were gone, Pepper. It was bad enough to lose you the first time, but to lose you like that? I couldn’t have dealt with that.”
“Oh. Yeah? Then do me a favor and explain it to me. Why is Hunter so important? Why does it gotta be him? ’Cause that’s what this is about, right? You fuck me but you still want to be with him.”
“You’re with Hunter.” It was more of a question than a statement.
Tears welled up in my eyes. “But it hasn’t been right. It hasn’t been you. I can’t . . . I haven’t been able to—” I sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t be a real girlfriend to him when all I can do is think about you.”
“Ah, shit, Pepper.” Still holding my face, he lowered his forehead to mine. “I’m not going through this again with you just so you can run when you get scared that I’m not like some ideal you built up in your head. I love you. I’m fucking in love with you, but it’s all or nothing. I won’t do this again unless it’s going to be like that.”
Now I was crying, choking on my sobs. “I know. I want that. It took me so long to figure that out, but I know now. You are the safest thing I’ll ever find.” I deliberately repeated his words, holding his gaze and letting them sink in. “Because you love me. Because I love you.”
“I’m not going to lie to you and convince you that I’m someone good and shiny like your guy that’s going to be a doctor.”
“His blue eyes drilled into me. “Why are you doing this?”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”
He shook his head once like that wasn’t good enough. “Why are you here?”
His fingers shifted, the tips sending hot little sparks up my arm. He should look ridiculous with the blue washcloth covering half his face, but he didn’t. He looked human and male and all too vulnerable right then.
“Because you need someone.”
“That’s just ridiculous,” I breathed, awe and lust swirling through me like some heady elixir.”
“Kicking off my shoes, I climed in beside him.
I eased toward him. His body radiated heat in the bed. I relaxed, inching closer, burrowing the tip of my nose against his back, savoring the clean smell of his skin, fresh from the shower.
His voice rumled through his back toward me. "Hey, your nose is cold."
I grinned ahainst his skin. "How about my feet?" I wedged them between his calves.
He hissed. "Get some socks on, woman.”
“Is that what you would do?"
He stared at me and I waited, wondering why his answer mattered so much.
"I wouldn't have waited this long for you. I would have already showed up at your dorm the minute you decided I wanted you. I wouldn't leave until I convinced you that you were mine.”
“His eyes drifted shut. without opening them, he murmured, "I like the sound of your laugh. It's real and genuine. A lot of girls have this fake laugh. Not you."
"I like your laugh, too." I whispered, feeling pulled in, cozy in the cacoon of his bed.
"Yeah?"
I flattened my palm over his chest, enjoying the sensation of the firm flesh, even warm as it was. He sighed, like my cool hand offered him some relief.
"I laugh more since you came around," he said quietly, his lips barely forming the words.
He did? I frowned. He must not have laughed at all before, then, because I didn't think he was particularly jovial.
I held him through the night. And he held me back, tucking my head beneath his chin. His arms surrounded me and kept me close to his overly warm body. Almost like I was some kind of lifeline. I felt the moment his fever broke around one in the morning. I finally relaxed and fell asleep.”
“That's what I wanted. Something to enrich me, to make me feel better about the things in my life that I could never change." - Page 56”
“Human trials are often games to see which lawyer is best able to use the law, the jury’s beliefs and prejudices, and his own theatrical ability to win.”
“It was hot, the night we burned Chrome.”
“The angel of death had cruised him. Death, that hustler, that last lover.”
“You’re just begging for a piece of me, you know that?” she growled. “I don’t know what gave you the idea I've lowered my standards, but I assure you, I haven’t. I want no part of you.”
“With no sums to keep his conscience at bay, the black book loomed large, creeping into his line of sight.
He scanned the room for something else to do. The harness still needed work. And he'd been meaning to fix that rickety shelf since last month. The pipe on his potbellied stove was dented. The windowsill needed dusting.
Dusting?
J.T. braced his arms on the desk and pressed his forehead into the heels of his hands.”
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