Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
I struggled to focus on what I was doing, but my attention kept slanting back to the intensity that burned from his gaze.
“I don’t believe that you’re bad, Milo Hendricks. I know things, remember?” I tried to inject some lightness into it.
Casualness.
But there wasn’t a single thing casual about this moment.
“That’s because you don’t really know me, Little Dove.”
I feel you.
I see you.
I know you just by being in your space.
I peeked at him as I kept gently pressing the cloth to his face. “Would you let me know you? If I asked you to?”
His mouth tipped down at the side. “I let Autumn go there, and it destroyed her.”
I hated myself for the flame of jealousy that lapped through my consciousness, and I knew this crush was no longer just a crush.
It’d likely never been.
It’d been distorted by my twisted loyalty to Karl.
And now that my spirit was freed, it gushed toward what it wanted.
I moved to dab at the small cut at the corner of his swollen eye, my intentions wrong, razors that I felt slash through the atmosphere. “You’re still in love with her.”
He let go of a brittle sound, his response cutting us both in two. “I’m the reason she’s dead.”
I froze.
His response answered nothing but only bred a million questions.
Torment clotted his words. “Because I was too late. Too reckless. Too fuckin’ ignorant to see what was happening.”
“I—”
“Fuck,” he spat, spinning away.
He set both hands on the countertop, and he bent over, trying to catch his breath, or maybe he was just wishing he could reel the confession back in.
“Milo—”
“Just leave it.” His voice was raw.
I blinked, unsure of what to do, and my eyes wandered down his back, over his tattered, shredded shirt and the gnarly wounds that were visible underneath.
“I think you need a doctor, Milo.”
“I don’t.”
“You might have—”
He lifted his battered face to glare at me through the mirror. “I don’t, Tessa.”
A war tore through me. Finally, I stepped forward. “Then at least let me help you get cleaned up.”
He blew out a strained breath as his head slumped between his shoulders, the words coarse as they scraped into the heavy air. “You should go. Forget everything I got you wrangled into.”
Mine was a confession. “I don’t think that I can. Your kids…”
Agony blazed through his expression. “What if they’re better off with Paula and Gene? What if I’m being selfish, trying to get them back? What if I’m only going to end up hurting them in the end?”
“No.”
It was a promise.
My oath.
“You’re wrong if you think you’re not what’s right for them. I saw it in all three of you yesterday, Milo. You belong together.”
Somberness moaned through the atmosphere.
But something else hit it, too, when he slowly turned around.
Something fierce.
Unrelenting.
Powerful.
He looked down at me, all the intense angles of his face held in restraint, his eyes drenched with the fears and hurt he didn’t have an answer to.
“You have to fight for this, Milo. With all your strength. With all your love. With everything you have.”
His brow slashed in severity. “And what if letting them go is the best thing I can do to show my love for them?”
I pushed forward, my voice twisted in the hope I had for him. “Is that what your heart tells you? That they’d be better off without you?”
His thick throat bobbed beneath his beard when he swallowed. “No. It’s tellin’ me to fight. To protect. To give them the life that Autumn and I had dreamed of giving them before we lost her.”
“Then that’s what you do.”
“It might be ugly, Tessa.” It rang with a dark warning. “And still, after everything, you want to stand by my side?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything. I know it might be ugly. You already told me, and I already accepted it. But sometimes, we have to make it through the ugliness to find the beauty on the other side. Now, we need to get you undressed.”
I said it like it was no big deal.
Like the thought of getting this man naked had never crossed my mind.
Ragged breaths pumped through my lungs, and my tongue stroked out to wet my dried lips as I slowly knelt in front of him.
He towered over me. A fortress that had been battered but still remained standing.
More ominous than ever.
It felt like some of the secrets he’d tried to keep disguised had been lifted to reveal the darkness that writhed beneath.
Milo exhaled a shaky breath. “And sometimes, the sun rises when you least expect it.”
The words were low. Riddled with a dark affection.
My chest stretched so tight I was struggling to breathe as I fumbled through the laces on his boots. I worked to get them loose, then struggled to get the giant things free of Milo’s massive feet.
Tension pulled between us. Growing as an acute silence poured into the confined space. I could feel the heat of his gaze.