Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“But—”
“So do you think I like that? I like being your bodyguard who keeps you safe from yourself. Or maybe you think instead of the game and my players and doing my fucking job, I like watching you at the stadium. I like remembering your laughably flimsy outfits more than remembering who made the pass or who scored the fucking goal.
“No, actually, what I enjoy the most is this incessant urge to beat up my twin brother. This incessant urge to ruin him and get him out of the way. Creative ways to ruin him and get him out of the way. Ways that defy all logic and reason. Because that’s the only way I can keep myself from doing something drastic, from actually turning them into reality. Tell me, Dora, do you think I enjoy any of it, any of whatever the fuck this is?”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer as he keeps going, “You’re a virus, you understand. You’re a disease. You’re an epidemic. The fucking CDC should issue guidelines for the kind of health hazard that you are. And I’m sick of being sick with you. I’m fucking sick of being infected by you. I want you out of my system, my mind, my body. I want you gone. I want to be myself again. I want my peace back. I want my life back. I want my fucking control back and if I have to deign to touch you to make that happen, then I’ve decided that I will. If the only way to get you out of my system is to fuck you out of it, then I’ve decided that I will do that too. It doesn’t matter that you’re not my type, that you’ll never be my type or that my twin brother’s in love with you. I want you and I will do anything, break any rule, fuck anyone over to have you. Until I don’t want you anymore.”
I’m not sure whose breaths are louder, his or mine.
Whose heart is racing more.
It has to be mine.
It has to be.
Because he’s the Cold Thorn, isn’t he?
The one who’s always emotionless and aloof. The one who doesn’t get affected. Who’s made of ice.
But maybe not.
Maybe what I thought was right. He’s as hot as wildfire.
“Y-you…” I begin, halting and stumbling. “You really think about creative ways to—”
“The other day, I thought about him slipping in the shower and hitting his head.”
“That’s awful,” I gasp out.
“I’m awful,” he agrees.
“And what about other guys? Do you really… threaten them t-to keep me safe?”
He waits a few seconds to answer. “Someone has to do it.”
“And that person is you?”
“That person is always me,” he says. “When it comes to you.”
I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arm around them. “Do you really watch me more than you w-watch the games?”
“I missed last season’s winning goal.”
“The one…” I lick my lips. “The one at the championship game?”
“Yeah.”
“It was Ledger. He made the goal,” I inform him even though there’s no way he doesn’t know by now.
“Which I found out about thirty seconds later.”
“What was I wearing?” I ask then.
“What you always wear.”
“Which is what?”
“Some flimsy contraption made of strings and laces. This one was orange in color.”
“It wasn’t a contraption,” I protest.
“It had more strings crisscrossing your back than any dress could possibly ever need,” he protests.
“That’s not—”
“But then again, for how flimsy it was and how it kept whipping against the wind while basically showing off those two dimples on your back, maybe it did need those strings to hold it all together.”
“You noticed the dimples on my back?”
“Along with a small mole, yes.”
I bring my hand back then and touch the mole through my white dress. It sits just above one of those dimples and it’s really small.
“It’s really small,” I repeat to him.
“Your dress was really revealing.”
“It was just a normal backless dress with a few strings spanning the back.”
“It was also a dress where I could not only see those dimples and that mole but also the crack of your tight little ass.”
I sit up even straighter. “You couldn’t.”
“I could.”
“My dress wasn’t that revealing.”
“It was exactly that revealing.”
“Well, then you should’ve looked away.”
“Is that why you wore it?” he shoots back. “Because you wanted me to look away?”
No.
I wore it specifically so he’d look.
I’ve worn other dresses over the last year for that specific reason alone.
For him to look. For him to watch.
For him to want.
And he does.
God, he does.
That’s the conclusion of it all, isn’t it?
He does want me.
After all this time, after all these tears, all this frustration, all the times I thought even if I dropped dead at his feet, he’d simply hop over my dead body and walk away without sparing me a glance, turns out he won’t. He probably would bend down and carry me somewhere safe.