Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
He winced ever so slightly. “Yeah, I told her,” he replied. “She took it about as well as I thought she would. At first, she thought I’d change my mind, that it was a phase. Then she got pissed. Now she’s just accepted it. I’ve let her down. But I just can’t... see anything else for me. I’m not worth anything else.”
My blood turned cold. He really meant what he’d said. I’d caught things like this every now and then, a self-deprecating remark about himself peppered into our conversations. It had been enough to bother me, but he glossed over them so quickly that I’d never had a chance to address them.
“Cody,” I whispered. “You’re worth everything. You are the kindest person I know. You are the most special person I know. What makes you even think such things?”
He paled ever so slightly, his eyes darkening.
I got the feeling that he was going to tell me something. Something that explained those comments, that undercurrent of darkness that I sensed in him from time to time.
But then it went away. He put on a mask, and the Cody I recognized returned. “I don’t know, guess it’s shit from not havin’ my Old Man in my life. But I don’t wanna talk about that.” He pressed his lips against my neck. “Actually, I don’t want to talk at all. I want to make love to my Old Lady.”
Something moved inside me. Grew. Something good. “Old Lady?” I repeated.
“Yes,” he growled, his lips moving down my neck. “If I’m going to patch in to the Sons of Templar, then you’re gonna be my Old Lady. You okay with that
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah, I’m more than okay with that,” I murmured.
So our future was laid out in front of us. Just like a romance novel.
Too bad romance novels were fiction.
“So what happens now?” I asked after closing the door to Cody’s room on graduation night, starting to unbutton my shirt. The act of undressing in front of Cody was still novel to me. It was so intimate, so grown up, so precious. Mostly, we’d been ripping each other’s clothes off with desperate need. Though I liked that a lot, this was special too. I couldn’t wait until I could undress for him every night. He was going to save up to get a rental, move in before I graduated then I’d move in with him. My mother would have a cow, but I’d legally be an adult so she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Plus, I’d be going to a college forty minutes’ drive away, commuting daily, so she couldn’t complain.
I was anxious to get my senior year started. An entire year of school ahead of me seemed like torture, especially knowing that Cody would be living on his own and prospecting with the Sons of Templar MC, likely being exposed to all kinds of very attractive, very experienced women.
Not that I didn’t trust Cody, but my obsession made my thoughts ugly.
“Do you like drive your motorcycle into their compound and then they test you for worthiness or macho-ness? Or do you have to like rob a bank or something to show you’re willing to do anything for the MC?” I continued. “As much as I support you doing this, I really don’t think you should rob a bank. I know that movies make it seem like bank robberies have a high success rate, but they really don’t. It’s not a feasible way to steal money.”
Cody didn’t laugh or even crack a smile, which really didn’t reassure me about the whole bank robbery thing. In addition to the silence, there was the look. That look. The cold, tortured one from our first night together.
“Cody?” I asked, getting worried.
“I was your first,” Cody said, his voice dead.
I was scared. No, terrified. Because I didn’t recognize his voice. I didn’t recognize the way he looked at me. I suddenly felt too exposed with my shirt half unbuttoned. Like I needed a barrier because I had the feeling something was going to cut up my bare skin.
“I was your first,” he repeated.
The way he said those words to me gave me pause. There was something in his eyes. Something detached from us.
So I didn’t speak, just nodded.
“You weren’t mine.”
I flinched at his tone, though, the truth stung a little too. “I’m aware that you weren’t living in a convent prior to us getting together,” I teased, trying to joke but not succeeding.
“No, I didn’t have my first sexual experience with some fuckin’ cheerleader,” he scowled. There was violence in voice. In every cell of his body. My relaxed and charming boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. This was the dark side of him that I’d sometimes seen snippets of. Flashes. Things that had told me I hadn’t yet seen all of him. Didn’t know all of him.