Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
I feel like I’ve been lying to everyone I’ve met for a good long time now, and I’ve done it to keep myself and my family safe, but I just don’t want to do it right now. I can’t do it right now. Not to Ayana, who is staring at me so openly with those huge whisky eyes. Not to Ayana, who has been nothing but goodness and sunshine and fucking light in the darkness that I didn’t know I was walking in until she came and told me I was going to be a dad.
A dad.
The one thing I never had.
How, then, can I raise a child?
Panic. Panic in my gut. Panic like fire, spreading everywhere. Panic, consuming me, filling me with dread, and weighing me to the ground like a lead anchor.
“Smoke!” Ayana. Ayana, saying my name above the music. We’re not dancing anymore. We’re not moving. But I can barely hear her through the roar in my brain. “Smoke.” Softer. So much softer. Her dark lashes flutter, and her eyes burn me up. “It’s going to be okay.” So. So. Understanding.
So understanding when I’m lying to her even now. When Smoke isn’t even my real name, and when I’d give a good portion of myself—okay, maybe a toe, literally—to hear her say my actual name.
She still thinks I can’t hear her. She senses my panic; she can see every bit of it. Her eyes darken until I’m drowning in their whisky depths, in the large black pupils. Her hands drop to mine, and then she steps closer and threads her arms around my neck, bringing her face up to mine, her sultry breath tickling my cheek as she whispers reassurances.
“It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
I promised myself that I would take things slow and make sure I didn’t make a mess of anything now that everything is so monumentally more difficult to try and decipher and figure out, especially since a plan should involve clear-headed thinking, not our bodies. But when her lips land on mine, teasing and tasting me with hesitance because she’s almost shy all of a sudden, I know I can’t react.
Liar. You’re a liar. She wouldn’t be so understanding if she knew what you’d done, where you came from, and the things you did to survive. Is that the kind of man she’d want for the father of her child?
I stand there like a great lump of a human being, my lungs heaving in and out until she gets bold and scrapes her teeth over my bottom lip. She nips me at the end, drawing the salty metallic tang of blood, and lust rips through me despite my wretched thoughts, churning my gut alongside the sick jog of memory and stirring up all the sensations I can’t ignore. The beast that I was trying to keep pent up rears up inside me, the beast that very much likes Ayana because she is gorgeous and otherworldly, womanly, impossibly smart, and so, so sexy. And kind. And compassionate. None of which you deserve.
You’re lying to her. Lying to her about all of it. She thinks she can trust you. She offered you this grace, this profound gift, and all you’ve done is lie and lie. She won’t accept you when she knows. How could she? She’s too good.
Too good. Too good. Too good.
I try my hardest to chain the bastard back up, both the insidious voice and the writhing beast of desire. Ayana’s tongue teases my bottom lip, soothing the sore spot she just nipped and sweeping right over the bite mark, the sting of her battling with the red-hot desire flooding my brain, drowning out common sense. Still, I don’t move. I just take deep, steady breaths, drawing in enough oxygen to help my brain.
Think. Think. Think. Think.
“Smoke?” Ayana whispers in the smallest voice against my lips. “It really is okay.”
“The plan…” I garble.
The plan is moronic because you’re a liar. You didn’t have a father. Your father didn’t want you. And your mother didn’t want you. No one wanted you. You were adopted by a woman for criminal purposes. She loved you because she had to. It was a means to an end. You think you can teach a child to love?
That’s a lie.
If it’s a lie, then you’re also a lie. Because all you can do is lie.
Ayana threads her fingers through my hair and tugs brutally, sending searing pain through the back of my neck and into my skull. Searing. Roaring. Distracting. Grounding. Pain. She looks into my eyes so deeply that my heart twists and turns over. I’m so thankful for her at this moment that I’m choking on it. Choking on the fact that she sees me. She’s staring at my ugly, ruined face, at my scar, and she’s not afraid of me. She can see past that. Would she be able to see past all the other stuff too? Would she still have any hope and trust in me if she knew I was lying to her?