Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 192(@200wpm)___ 154(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 192(@200wpm)___ 154(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
I’m big on being blatantly honest with myself, if only in my head. But since I’d never experienced anything like what happened the night before, it was hard to get a real perspective. To know what was real and what was make believe. Like if maybe I’d built him up in my head.
So much had happened in the hour or so of our acquaintance. From me almost losing my life at the hands of those thugs, to finding myself entranced by Braden Scott in a way that I’ve never known before.
Of course I have to pick it all apart. I’m not one to just rush into things, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, or any situation where there’s a chance of me getting hurt.
So I questioned my feelings, taking them out one by one and looking at this thing from all angles. Were those feelings that I carried with me through the night real? Had I met the first man who’d made my heart beat faster?
Or could it simply be a case of hero worship for the man who’d saved me? Was I projecting? These were all the things I would ask a patient who came to me with the same symptoms.
4
Cassie
I was still beating myself up half an hour later, trying to find the answers as I sat at the kitchen table with my forgotten coffee. I tried looking at things from all angles but it was no help.
It’s much easier to diagnose and analyze others, not so much when it comes to yourself. Of course in the back of my mind was the worry that if I pursued this I’d only end up making a complete fool of myself.
That maybe in the bright light of day it’ll turn out to be nothing more than an over abundance of gratitude. Somehow I don’t think so though. If it were nothing more than that I’m sure I’d be over it by now and these butterflies in my tummy would’ve taken flight and left long ago.
No! I remember feeling safe with him there in a way that I’ve never felt with anyone else before. Especially when he’d pushed me behind his back, blocking them from view.
And that feeling of safety had been about more than the gun that he held trained on them, but him, the man. I know enough to know that that kind of emotional rollercoaster, to go from stark terror to immense relief can play hell with the human psyche.
That I shouldn’t trust my emotions right now. And yet, knowing all that, there was something inside me, something new and dare I say, exciting, that was telling me there was something there, something more than meets the eye.
What that something is I still don’t know yet, but I won’t find out unless I see him again. I do know one thing for certain, and that’s that I can’t just ignore my feelings. I believe strongly in seeing things through. Or what some of my acquaintances call, being a persistent pest.
Whatever, there was a new sense of excitement in the air, one that I’d never felt before, and something tells me it had to do with him. Why that is, is the big question.
Is it simply a case of hero worship? Is it because I saw something in his eyes that spoke to me? Or is it what I’m beginning to suspect? That the feelings he’d awakened in me, were more than just a passing whim.
It seemed almost preposterous to think that with just one fleeting look I had seen so much. My mind said that, but my heart was saying something else entirely. It’s the first time this has ever happened to me.
And because I have no experience with such things, having spent the last five years with my head buried in books of a scientific bent, not only were these new feelings confusing, they were borderline terrifying.
I rubbed my suddenly trembling tummy and fought back the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. After a little heart to heart with myself, for the first time in my sheltered life, I decided to overlook my natural reticence and fear of rejection.
I will never get anywhere if I was forever shielding myself, afraid to try new things, anything. I’m getting way ahead of myself, but whether my daydream was going to fall apart before it got started, this time I owe it to myself to at least try. That sounded good in theory.
But of course I then spent the next half an hour talking myself into doing what needed to be done. Somehow I knew if I didn’t see this thing through that I’d live to regret it. There was something in his eyes….
I convinced myself, once I untied the knots in my stomach, that it could be done without me losing face. I didn’t have to show my hand right away or make a fool of myself in the bargain.