Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Burgess . . .”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t finish last night,” she said on a laughing exhale. “It makes me feel like I didn’t, either.”
He wrestled back a groan. “You did. The way you shook—”
“Are you really just trying to make me cave in again?” she interrupted. “If so, that’s fully evil.”
“I’m not going to lie, I hope you’ll want me again. But mostly . . .”
When the truth dawned on him, it was so unexpected, he couldn’t get the words out.
Tallulah searched his expression with a line between her brows. “What?”
The back of his neck heated. “I guess, uh . . . I couldn’t let myself go with you, Tallulah, when your heart wasn’t in it. I don’t . . . I’ve never been that weak for or with anyone, the way I am with you. It would have hurt to be weak while you were . . . resisting feeling anything and everything for me. Jesus, I don’t even know if that makes fucking sense.”
For just a beat, she appeared stricken. “It does,” she whispered, tilting her face up.
Bringing their mouths a hairsbreadth apart.
Burgess’s heart started pounding so loudly in his chest they both heard it. Guests probably heard their mangled palpitations from the other side of the resort. Was she going to kiss him? Without him initiating? God, please let it be happening. Let his rambling explanation of why he couldn’t get off last night mean something coherent to her.
His body moved on instinct, pressing her up against the door and she moaned, her hips tilting forward against his, and that was all the encouragement he needed to dip his mouth to her neck and suck a pathway up to her ear, his right hand sliding down the back of her jean shorts. If he got her onto that bed with her legs open, with his balled-up sweatshirt in plain view, nothing was going to stop him from coming this time—
“There you are!”
A familiar voice, belonging to Carlos, shattered the moment like a baseball through a pane of glass. Tallulah lurched back so suddenly, she hit her head on the doorframe and Burgess’s stomach dropped through the floorboards. His right palm was cradling the back of her skull before he knew his own intentions. “Oh, gorgeous,” he murmured, scrutinizing her face for signs of pain. “You okay?”
“I don’t think today is a good idea,” she blurted.
“Why?”
“You’re being so . . . wonderful. And I’m . . .” She shut her eyes. “I moved on. I did.”
He ignored the meat cleaver burying in the middle of his chest. “Let me ask you again, how do you want the day to go?”
“Hey, folks!” Carlos was standing beside them, waving both hands. “All aboard the adventure train. Your guide is waiting at reception.”
Tallulah never took her eyes off Burgess and vice versa. “Can we just share the experience without any expectations, maybe? Please?” She wet her lips. “Every time you get close to me, like this, I panic. And the worst part is, you used to be the reason I didn’t panic. You really hurt me, okay?” Her eyes drifted shut. “Obviously, I still have feelings for you, they didn’t just disappear overnight, but I don’t . . . I—I don’t think we’re getting back together.”
“I’ll just wait over there,” Carlos muttered, zipping away.
Until that moment, Burgess wasn’t sure he’d realized how deeply he’d wounded her. The extent of the damage, the trust he’d mangled like a car wreck. And all at once, he felt like the King Asshole. So arrogant, coming to this wedding thinking he could flash his pecs and win this perfect person back over. After what he’d said?
After so callously severing the bond they’d built?
I’m a complete idiot.
His closeness was hurting her. The damage he’d inflicted must be irreversible.
And the only thing he could think of that was worse than living without Tallulah was hurting her any more than he already had.
It took all of Burgess’s strength to speak, but when he did, he meant every word like he’d chiseled them into a stone tablet. “We can have today with no expectations.”
You can stop panicking now, Tallulah. I’m setting you free.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Who wants to go first?”
For the first time since they’d left the resort, Burgess and Tallulah looked at each other. The van ride had been brief, but quiet, even if their guide—Apollo—had kept up a steady stream of chatter about the local flora and fauna while they bumped their way through the rainforest to the zip-lining center. Burgess had appeared to be reeling while she’d sat beside him swallowing apologies, reminding herself over and over that she had nothing to feel sorry for.
And she didn’t.
Allowing herself to bond with Burgess had been scary, but she’d learned to trust him and she could still feel the hole he’d verbally punched into her chest. Every time they touched now, her fight-or-flight response was triggered. Unfortunately, not even the hunger she still felt for Burgess could overcome her instinct to survive, to avoid being hurt again.