Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 107803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
The bed feels empty, no body beside mine. I instantly feel the void. I sit up, clutching the blanket around me, and jump when I catch sight of the form in the shadows.
Naz is still here.
He's standing in front of my dresser, fully dressed, holding a picture frame he picked up from it. It's a photo of my mother and me the day I graduated high school. It's hard to believe it was less than a year ago.
His head turns my way as he sets the frame back down on the dresser. "You're awake."
"You are, too," I say. "What are you doing?"
"What I shouldn't."
"What's that?"
"Thinking."
I laugh lightly, wrapping the blanket tighter around me as I survey his face in the darkness. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that I like you, and that's a problem for me."
His serious tone startles me. "Why's it a problem?"
"Because I don't like people," he says bluntly. "I deal with people. That's what I do. But rarely do I particularly like anyone... like them enough to want to deal with them in ways that aren't work to me."
"I don't get why that's a problem."
"Because I wasn't supposed to like you, Karissa."
I'm baffled, unsure what to make of that. "When you say you like me, you mean...?"
"I like you," he says again, as if that answers my question. He pauses for a moment, glancing back at the frame on my dresser. "There's something about you... something I've sought for a very long time. Something I've always wanted. And now that I've found it, I don't know if I can let it go."
"Then don't," I say.
"You don't know what you're asking," he responds. "I'm not a man who just gives up in the middle of something. If I go any further, if I don't walk away now, I won't be able to."
"I don't want you to walk away," I say. "I like you, too."
"You don't even know me."
His voice has a hint of anger behind it, a bit of bitterness that makes my stomach knot.
"You don't know me either," I say. "You don't even know my favorite color."
"Pink," he says. "You've had on something pink every time I've seen you… your phone case is pink… so are your sheets."
Maybe that was too easy. "My favorite food."
"You'd probably say Ramen. You accept what you think you deserve, but you deserve so much more, whether you admit it or not. You want to indulge. You like to give in to cravings. That's why your real favorite is chocolate."
"What kind of chocolate?"
"Whatever kind of chocolate you can get your hands on."
Okay, he's right… I do like chocolate. "How about my favorite movie?"
"Peter Pan."
He answers without an ounce of hesitation. I just stare at him, stunned. "How can you possibly know that?"
"Easily. You still see yourself as a child, and not an adult, like you believe you'll never grow up." He pauses, eyeing me peculiarly. "Not to mention you let a strange guy whisk you away with promises of magic, and he had you floating on cloud 9 all night long."
"I, uh..." What the fuck? "How...?"
Before I can get out a coherent thought, he laughs and continues. "You have a copy of the cartoon on your shelf. There's a Tinker Bell poster beside your bed. It wasn't a hard guess."
I feel silly and am immediately grateful the room is so dark so he can't see my blush. "Well what about my—"
"It doesn't matter." He cuts me off as he steps forward, closer to the bed. "We could play this game all night long, Karissa, but those things mean nothing. My favorite color's black, my favorite food is steak, and if I had to pick a movie, it would be Twelve Angry Men, but that doesn't tell you who I am."
"Who are you then?"
He takes another step forward, so close that I can see the blue in his eyes now. He stares down at me on the bed, his expression serious. "Someone you should stay far away from."
Those words make me tremble. I believe it—he has a way of making someone believe whatever he says—but still, they don't stop the traitorous feelings inside of me. Maybe I should stay away from him, but I don't want to.
I don't think I can.
Instead of responding, I reach out toward him, running my hand along his thigh. The yearning to touch him still lingers in me. His reflex is startling fast as he snatches ahold of my hand, stilling it on his leg, his grip strong.
"I'm telling you," he says, his voice strained. "I'm warning you. I'm not a good man, Karissa, and I never will be. So don't think you can fix me, or that I'll ever change, because I won't. I can't. You have to know, if this goes any further, if you ask me to stay, I'm not going to be able to let you walk away."
He lets go of my hand. I hesitate. It's only a few seconds—seconds of thinking, something I've spent my whole life doing, before I concede to feeling, the one thing that's brought me more pleasure than before. The seconds feel like an eternity as he stares down at me, our eyes locked, as if he's challenging me. He's waiting for my decision, waiting to hear the outcome, like I'm those twelve angry men with his life in my hands.
My hand, which inches up his thigh again and grazes over his crotch, delivering the final verdict—he's not condemned, but maybe I am.
His eyes drift closed, a soft sigh escaping his parted lips, and I know then, as I feel his cock through the material of his pants, hardening against my palm, that I signed on the dotted line. I'm in.
It's needless, but I say it anyway. "Stay."
His eyes reopen, a smirk tugging the corner of his lips. "Red."
My eyes widen. "What?"
"If you ever need me to stop, you just say red."
"Red," I whisper, goose bumps coating my arms.
His smile fades at the sound of it. "Don't say it unless you mean it. If you just need me to back off, to slow down, to take it easier on you, say yellow. It works like a stoplight. Understand?"