Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
“Not us.” Her hand goes to my face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean us or you. I meant everyone going at each other and me being in the middle. So I choose to trust you and what I feel with you, until you, not someone else, gives me a reason not to. But please don’t make me sorry.”
Relief washes over me. “I’m not going to make you sorry.”
She rolls to face me, propping herself up on her elbow. “Be honest with me no matter how bad it is, because I get it. There was stuff that happened before we knew each other. I’m not stupid. Just be honest like you were tonight. No secrets. No lies. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I say, and I mean those words despite the fact that I have a secret and therefore I just told a lie.
One lie, one secret, to protect her and my brother.
Chapter fifty-nine
Carrie
The minute Reid says, “I promise,” I climb on top of him and let my robe slide from my body. His gaze rakes over my body and he grabs me, rolls me, and in an instant, he’s undressed and pressing inside me. And this time, we fuck. Hard and fast, with my legs on his shoulders and then my knees in his chest. When it’s over, we end up under the blankets with me curled into his side, my head resting on his chest; his heart thrumming beneath my palm.
“Tomorrow’s the big day,” I say.
He leans up to look at me, his gaze cutting through the haze of the room lit by open curtains and starlight. “It’ll go well.”
“Yes. I think it will.”
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” I say as we have in the past.
“I’m a movie buff. I love going to the movies and eating popcorn. I even go alone.”
I lift my head. “Alone?”
“Yes. Alone.”
“Well, I like movies. So you don’t need to go alone anymore.”
“I won’t,” he says. “It’s a date. Many movies. Your turn. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“I want a cat, but I fear I work too much.”
“I want a dog, but I fear I work too much.”
I roll to my stomach to look at him. “You want a dog?”
“Yeah. I do. I had one as a kid and I loved that damn dog.”
“What kind?”
“German Shepard.”
“I had a Pomeranian I lost a few years back, it feels like yesterday. I think I’m ready to have another fur baby. I was actually thinking about getting a cat. Do you like cats?”
“Yes.” He laughs. “I feel like we’re having the ‘do you want kids’ conversation.” He rolls me to my side and pulls me against his chest, with that comment lingering in the air.
“I don’t,” I say as if he asked. “I don’t want kids. I just don’t want someone to disappoint.”
His curls his arm more fully around me. “You understand me better than you think, Carrie. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Go to sleep, baby. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
I shut my eyes, my hand settling on his arm, and just like that the warmth of slumber overtakes me.
I wake naked, in my bed, with Reid wrapped around me, sunlight beaming through the window, announcing the new day I’m starting with him, and it really is heavenly. He smells good and I feel safe. I don’t remember any human being except my father, and of course, in a different way, making me feel safe. But as I lay here, I realize at some point my father stopped giving me that feeling. I guess I assumed it was being an adult and independent. But it was more. I sensed something in him and only now does everything Reid told me last night start to sink in.
“I can hear you thinking some pretty heavy thoughts.”
I roll over and face him. “Not about you.”
He brushes what has to be my wild morning hair from my eyes. “Your father.”
“Yes. My father.”
“I get it, you know. It wasn’t that long ago that I finally saw my father for what he is.”
“The letter?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I think I knew, but I was in denial,” I reluctantly admit.
“As did I. The fairytale of my mother keeping him human was obviously a lie. It doesn’t get easier, Carrie. You want them to be more.”
“You forced your father’s retirement. That had to have been hard.”
“Easier than you think. I was about to do it when he had his stroke. You’d think that would tame the bastard in him, but it didn’t.”
“How does Gabe feel about it?”
“Happy as fuck. He’s the one who convinced me to read the letter.”
“You needed convincing?”
“Yes. I did. I’m not one to do the out of sight, out of mind thing, but I didn’t want to know what I couldn’t change.”
I press my hands to his chest and listen to the thundering of his heart, absorbing how very human Reid “the asshole” has become. And I know from the thundering of his heart that while he seemed to speak easily, he has not. He doesn’t share these things about himself, but he has with me. “I’ve failed you.”