Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“I had no one,” I cry out, shoving his hard chest. The bastard doesn’t move, simply closes in on me. “I had no one.”
His features soften slightly as he studies my face up close. He frowns when his gaze skims over my wet cheek. I freeze as his hand rises. With the gentlest of touches, he swipes away the tear stain with his rough thumb. Then, as though he’s breaking from a spell, he glares at me.
“You never listened that day,” he hisses, not moving away from me. His heat blankets my flesh. “You ranted about what you wanted and didn’t give a shit that I wanted the same thing.”
A sob chokes me, but I swallow it down. “Of course I gave a shit!” Another tear races out. He swipes this one away too. “You were so upset about your father and your new obligation to your sister, but you never gave us a chance to work it out. You didn’t even want to try. Just got pissed off and sent me away.” I want nothing more than to grab the front of his T-shirt and fall against his massive, warm chest. Instead, I affix my bitchiest glare. These tears are angry, not sad. Lies.
The wind howls past us, sending my dress blowing up between us. A possessive growl rumbles from him as he slides his large hands down my body and pushes the material back down to cover me.
Bitter tears leak out.
If only he knew everyone in this damn town with a working dick has seen what’s under this dress. Shame coats over my skin. Disgust ripples through me. I did what I had to do—something I would have never done had he stayed.
The wind blows again, but he presses his hips against me, pinning the material between us. My dark hair plasters to my face. In a surprisingly gentle and familiar way, he uses one finger to pull the hair from my eyes and tuck it behind my ear.
I can’t take this.
I can barely take seeing him and talking to him and smelling him, much less touching him.
“I had to leave,” he tells me, his voice the softest since we first spoke a few minutes ago inside. “I had to.”
“You didn’t,” I breathe out, resentment leaking into my words, making me sound like a bitch. “You could have stayed.”
His body goes rigid. “My sister needed me.”
I needed you.
I slide my palm to his chest with every intention of pushing him away, but can’t help but linger over his heart where the beat thrums hard beneath my fingertips, right under where my nickname is inked. Breezy.
“I need to go,” I state in a cold voice I hope freezes him to his bones. “I have my appointment, and I need to be somewhere after this. I can’t run late.”
“We’re not done talking about this, Autumn,” he growls, his blue eyes hardening once more.
But we are.
Autumn isn’t who I am anymore.
He shut me down six years ago.
It’s too little too late.
I was forced to move on without him, whether I liked it or not. My life moved like currents in the ocean, dragging me far away from him. Each day was a struggle not to drown. I’ve barely stayed afloat.
And now he’s back.
Glaring at me like the sun itself. It’s so hard not to reach for him—to get burned by him. But six years ago, he hurt me in a way I’ll never recover from. I can’t emotionally afford for it to happen again.
“Goodbye, Lucca,” I utter in my most hateful tone, pushing on his chest. This time, he steps away, a dark expression marring his features.
“You can’t just walk away,” he bites out. “We’re not done.”
You walked away from me. We’ve been done ever since.
“You can’t just walk away,” he says, firmer. Like if he says it harshly enough, I’ll obey. His voice softens to nearly a whisper. “Autumn, you can’t just walk away.” A plea this time—one that threatens to tear what’s left of my broken heart into shreds.
But I can leave him.
I can be cruel too.
I learned from the best.
“Watch me.”
A cruel joke. That’s what I thought as soon as I saw Autumn—or fucking Summer—whatever the fuck she goes by these days—walk through the shop door two days ago.
My dancer girl was my ex-girlfriend.
The one who tore my heart out when she refused to come with me after my dad died.
My two worlds colliding knocked the wind out of me, and I’ve been moping around my apartment, trying to forget about them both, still struggling to combine the two entities as being the same damn person.
That tattoo! How had I not recognized it? It was my design staring at me from the cheek of her ass every damn time she danced for me. It wasn’t until the full print on Jake’s wall glared back at me like some fucked up hidden camera show that it came flooding back. I designed it for her after she asked me to deflower her on our fifth date.