Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 182(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 182(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“But what about the others? I didn’t save them.”
“But you got a medal. They all said it’s not your fault.”
“Yeah.” My expression must be dark as I stare at her because she flinches, her eyes glimmering for a moment like fear is flooding into her. “But does that magically make it better? Does that magically make it all okay? I still have to live with their memory, with the screams and the pain and the fucking hell of it all.”
I’m trembling, I realize, as all the memories I’ve beaten down over the years surge up inside of me, move through me hatefully.
My woman shuffles closer to me and wraps her arms around my waist, placing her cheek against my chest, squeezing me tightly. I reach up and hug her back, stunned at how she can draw me out of the past, draw me out of the pit I was on the verge of falling into.
“That’s the first time I’ve spoken about that in years,” I say, grabbing onto her tighter, closer, needing to feel her heat against me.
“How do you feel?”
“For a long time, I felt nothing. I didn’t let myself. Sometimes I failed. Sometimes I’d get so angry I’d break the punching bags in my gym, or hammer them without gloves until my knuckles turned bloody. But with you… I don’t know. It’s like a weight has been lifted. No, that’s not right.”
She waits patiently as I search for the right words.
“It’s like,” I go on, “I can feel that the weight could be lifted. Does that make sense?”
“Hope,” she murmurs. “It’s a powerful thing. I’m sorry, Zack, for freaking out on you like that—”
“Don’t apologize,” I tell her firmly. “You deserve to know about this stuff. We’re going to be together forever. Forever. Sooner or later, we’re going to come to know each other better than we know ourselves.”
“Remember what I said about you being crazily romantic without even trying? This is the best example of that.”
I chuckle and kiss the top of her head. I love burying my face in her hair and inhaling the scent of her, feeling her scent wash through me and warm up my insides like there’s some sort of magical force in there.
Goddamn.
Magical force?
Part of me – the old Zack – wants to laugh at that thought. But there’s another part of me that knows there’s nothing laughable about this at all, nothing to mock about the emotions my woman is stirring up inside of me.
“Just don’t go advertising it, alright?” I smirk. “I’ve got a grumpy reputation to uphold.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” She looks up into my eyes. “I know this version of you is just for me.”
“Exactly,” I say passionately. “Now, shall we go on our date, or do you want to throw another tantrum?”
She giggles and slaps my chest playfully. “I thought you said not to call it that, huh?”
“I’m joking,” I tell her seriously. “I never want you to feel guilty about sharing your emotions with me. But you can’t blame me for teasing you a little bit, can you?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I lean down to claim her lips with mine, growling through the closeness when I feel her melt for me, feel the passion moving through her. She lets out a moan that starts nervous and turns confident at the end.
I feel myself starting to think, I should find that ridiculous…
But I stop the thought mid-flow before it has a chance to fully take hold of me. I won’t allow myself to think about what I should feel anymore.
With me and my woman, we just are.
Chapter Seventeen
Zoey
I was right when I said that Zack is romantic as heck, even if it’s taken him decades to realize this.
For our date, he’s arranged for his roof to be covered in rose petals, so many of them it’s like he’s turned the concrete into pure red, like he’s painted on the warmth and the emotion and love.
Love.
The word won’t stop bouncing around my mind.
He leads us over to a table that sits near the edge of the roof, overlooking the city as the sun sets, glittering wonderfully and making my artist’s instincts itch as I think about painting it.
Zack pulls out my chair for me and I take a seat, feeling more like a princess than I ever could’ve believed just two days ago.
He walks around to his side and sits down, looking huge and handsome in his suit, his smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth when he looks over at me. I return his smile, as though there’s an invisible cord linking our expressions.
Relief swells inside of me when I think about how he’s not holding a grudge for my outburst back at his apartment, but then it did lead to him tell me about that SEAL stuff, to opening himself to the suffering he’s lived with, silently, alone, for so many years.