Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 39740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
And now I have one more thing to like about the sexy Grayson with the grey-blue eyes and sandy blonde hair. Just looking at him makes me feel weak and just a little bit lightheaded. Now we have that kiss to add to the mix, and I’m sure I’m a goner.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s my feelings, and right now, I feel like I’ve found my forever. A little voice in my head whispered that my Mom once thought the same thing. But in the short time I’d known him, I already knew that he was nothing like my father.
When you’ve lived with a snake that could strike at any moment, you learn to read people very well. Janice’s years of torment had taught me that skill. I’d bet everything I had that he was the one.
“So, it looks like we’re doing this.” I rested my hand against his chest and felt his heartbeat, which was just as wild as mine.
“Yeah, we are.” Another one of his kisses, and I would’ve promised him anything.
Thank heaven he had the wherewithal to pull our lips apart and get up to leave my apartment. I wanted him to stay; it was on the tip of my tongue to ask. But as if reading my thoughts, he turned back and leaned down to see into my eyes.
“I’m not staying tonight, but soon. When you look back on our first time together, I don’t want there to be any doubt that this was something we both wanted and not that we got carried away and couldn’t control ourselves.”
I could only nod my head in approval before he turned and left. I missed him already and the room felt empty, like something vital had been taken. I sat there for the longest time, waiting for my heart to calm down.
And just as I got it under control, he called me. My voice hitched on the phone and I did everything not to cry. I don’t know why I suddenly felt like crying or why my heart hurt the way it did.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll stay on the phone with you until I get home.”
“Okay, but pay attention to your surroundings.” Since my place isn’t that far from campus, he likes to walk back or jog unless we’re pulling an all-nighter, in which case he drives the short distance to put my mind at ease.
Our neighborhood is one of the safest, but still, I worry. I never even worried this much about myself being out and about at all hours. But it feels like every time he’s out of my sight, I’m afraid I’m going to lose him.
There’s still some of that little girl in me who was of everything from a father to a happy home with two parents. I had to watch someone else have that at my and my mother’s expense. The fact that Lacey was the other woman involved most definitely made things a lot more complicated.
I’d lost a lot to her already, I wasn’t about to lose Grayson as well. I’d made up my mind that I was going to go the distance; I was willing to face anything that came my way as long as he wasn’t taken from me.
Just the tone of his voice was able to bring me some semblance of peace, and I forgot my loneliness before long and got lost in the dreams his words and promises wove.
LACEY
I haven’t been able to sleep a wink since Gray brought up that bitch’s name at dinner the other night. How did I not know that she was going to his school? Her mother, the bitch is always very tight-lipped since the stupid courts changed the rules.
Mom and I always used to know what was going on in her life, but then she started snitching, and her Mom got all pissed off and took my Dad to court to kill his rights. That would’ve been for the best; then, I wouldn’t have had to see her ugly face again. But then, I wouldn’t have been able to torment her on those weeks she came to the house so I wasn’t sure which I wanted more.
Then the judge changed things, and Mom warned me not to do anything more to her, or we could all be in trouble. My grandparents, whom I’d never met, had threatened Dad then, too, and he had come down really hard on Mom and me.
It's true that he didn’t know all that we’d done to Lily. He was usually at work when most of it happened, and when she stayed in her room all those years, Mom convinced him that she hated him because of the divorce.
I was too young to understand a lot of things when I was younger, but once I got old enough to understand, I started asking questions, and Mom told me everything. She told me how she and Dad had fallen in love, but his family forced him to marry someone from his social circle, and because she was too poor, they didn’t accept her.