Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
He’d figured wrong.
And now he could almost see her taking an emotional step back, putting distance between them. He placed a finger beneath her jaw to tip up her head, catching her gaze with his own. “Don’t retreat from me.”
“I’m not. I just find it hard to believe that you’re fine. And I’m cautious of saying or doing the wrong thing here. If I saw Nazra pregnant with Zaire’s baby, I wouldn’t care. But you—”
“It didn’t hurt me to see Lucinda. It just took me off-guard.”
She gave him a tired, dubious look. “You more or less checked out. I had to guide you out of the store.”
“It wasn’t that I checked out. I was focused on trying to calm down my cat so he didn’t shift right there.”
Her brow pinched. “He wanted to savage the fiancé?” It was more of an assumption than a question.
Isaiah frowned. “What? No. He wanted to get to you.”
Her head flinched back in surprise. “Me?”
“He was pissed that she was near you, just as your cat is pissed whenever Zaire is in my general vicinity. It’s normal. Our animals each perceive them to be potential threats to the forming of an imprint bond. Then he sensed you were upset; sensed that your cat was mad. He did not like that, did not like that he couldn’t get to either of you to offer comfort, and so then he got more pissed.”
She didn’t appear totally convinced. “You didn’t say a word to me as we walked to the car, or as we were driving home. You dragged out your phone conversation with Deke—don’t deny it.”
“I did, yeah. I was still concentrating on calming down my cat. Hearing about mundane enforcer shit was distracting him.”
“He was really that mad?”
“Yes.” Isaiah caught the top of her ponytail in his fist. “The first time I saw her and her fiancé together, it was a hot stab to the fucking chest. But it was different this time.”
“How?”
“The only person on my mind was you.” He skimmed his fist down her ponytail, allowing it to slip through his grasp. “I wasn’t aching to follow her. I wasn’t feeling the need to pound her fiancé’s face into the ground. I wasn’t hurting to know she’s pregnant with his child. Because I have you.”
Quinley looked away. “You don’t have to say that.”
“Hey.” He curled one arm around her waist and pulled her close, curving his body around her. “It’s true,” he said as he swept his free hand up her back. “If you can look at Zaire and not be hurt, why can’t the same apply to me with Lucinda?”
“It’s not that I don’t think it can. It’s just that I’ve had a long time to get used to the situation with Zaire. You haven’t had that same length of time to make your peace with your situation with her, and she didn’t reject you the way he did me.”
“Doesn’t matter. Know why?” He palmed her nape tight. “Because I let her go. And somewhere between claiming you and hearing that you got shot, my cat did the same. You’re ours. Not her. I have no regrets, Quinley.”
She leaned into him, hugging him tight again. This time, though, it seemed that she just wanted to hide her expression from him. Maybe didn’t fully believe him. Or was scared to fully believe him.
“I wouldn’t say any of this if I didn’t mean it, Quin. I wouldn’t fill your head with lies, not even to make you feel better.” He stroked his fingers over her nape, doing a little foray over a bite mark there. “Ask yourself honestly, taking into account everything you know of me, do you truly think I would do that?”
She tipped her head up to look at him, pensive. “No,” she finally answered.
“Then there you go.”
“It’s just … we can convince ourselves of something to make it easier to deal with.”
“So you think I could be lying to myself? No, baby.” Releasing her nape, he brushed his palm along the side of her face and into her hair, pinning back the stray strands that were too short for her ponytail. “I’m too self-aware for that.”
“She’s your other half.”
“Doesn’t feel like it. She’s not the person who makes me laugh, who brought my cat out from under his cloud, who lets me take care of her because she knows I need it, who gives so much of herself to me while expecting nothing, who eats all my snacks and leaves IOU notes that never fail to make me smile.”
He slid his hand down to palm the side of her neck. “You fill that space inside me. Not her. I chose you. And if she was suddenly single and I was given the choice between you and her, I’d still choose you.” He breezed his thumb up the column of her throat. “You’re all I want, Quinley. You hear me?”