Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
I looked over at my bestie, at her hopeful face. “Yeah, it’s for good this time.”
For better or for worse.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
After a night at Violet and Elden’s, we were back at my apartment.
It was clean, didn’t smell stuffy, and the fridge had more food in it than it ever had when I’d lived here.
There was a bowl of fruit on the counter. A fucking cake complete with cake stand that I did not previously own, sitting on the island. Various vases boasted fresh flowers.
The biker babe gang had come and gone.
It was nice. And it felt weird, being in this space that hadn’t changed a bit when I had become a completely different person. I was not the woman who had picked the sofa, the pillows, the fucking bedding. That was a stranger who didn’t know what her own blood tasted like, who didn’t understand what it felt to have a knife tearing through her flesh.
Hence me pouring myself a drink when we first arrived. One day soon, I’d probably have to face my alcohol consumption and really make some changes.
But not this day.
“We need to talk,” Colby said.
I stopped topping up my drink to peer at him. “Those are four words everyone loves to hear. Are you breaking up with me?”
I was teasing, yet there was real fear underneath my words. Hadn’t I planned on breaking up with him when we got back to Garnett?
He’d slept in bed with me at Violet and Elden’s last night. He’d fucked me slow and quiet, twice. Then once in the morning. We’d emerged to an impressive breakfast spread with Colby’s arms around me and him kissing my goddamn temple before he poured the both of us coffee.
We were, for all intents and purposes, a couple.
If he was breaking up with me, it was a good thing. A thing that I, apparently, wasn’t strong enough to do.
“We haven’t been using condoms,” Colby said, surprising the fuck out of me.
I studied him over my glass. “What, you think I’m going to give you something?” I was pissed, glad I wasn’t fearful anymore. I didn’t like that.
“I’m clean.” That was a lie, but technically, I didn’t have any sexually transmitted diseases. They’d tested me for everything at the hospital. “You’re the only man I’ve been with since…” I glared at him. “Unless I’m not the only woman you’ve been with recently?” I forced myself to speak casually, to take another sip of my drink even though acid churned in my stomach lurched at the mere thought of him with another woman.
“You’d have every right,” I added, putting the glass down. “We weren’t betrothed or anything, and almost two years is a long time—”
“I have not touched another woman since the second I tasted you,” Colby declared fiercely.
I swallowed thickly at the intensity in which he’d spoken as well as the feeling that it gave me. Safe. Warm. Happy.
“Okay, well, that’s settled,” I shrugged, still going for casual but failing.
Colby reached over to snatch my glass, just one of his many casual, intimate gestures that took my breath away.
“We haven’t been using condoms,” he repeated after taking a long sip of my drink. “And you’re not on birth control.”
My heart froze. “How do you know?”
“’Cause I was on the road with you for weeks. Shared bathrooms.” He shrugged. “’Cause I’m nosy.”
I pursed my lips. “I could have an IUD.”
“Do you have an IUD?”
“No,” I rubbed the back of my neck. I would’ve liked to lie to him. It would’ve been much simpler. But I couldn’t do it.
He nodded. “So we’ve been fuckin’ a whole lot, I’m takin’ you raw, finishing inside of you.”
For once, him talking about the way he had been fucking me did not turn me on. Hadn’t I been expecting this? We hadn’t spoken about our lack of protection, and Colby was not the kind of guy to expect the woman to ‘just take care of it. In some corner of my mind, I’d been waiting for this conversation to come. I’d just been compartmentalizing.
“I’m aware of all the times we’ve had sex,” I scoffed. “I was there.”
His lip twitched. “Well, since you were aware, and since you had a period three weeks ago, maybe we cool it on this.” He motioned to the drink. “Until we know.”
“Until we know,” I repeated, musing to myself. Colby did not sound overly concerned about the prospect of me possibly being pregnant. He spoke casually, as if it weren’t the worst thing in the world. As if it was something he almost … wanted.
And that speared my fucking insides.
“I can’t have children,” I blurted.
Colby stared at me blankly, not even a stitch of shock, which would’ve been understandable considering what I’d just sprung on him. He just stared. Measuring me.
Nor did he ask any follow up questions. He just waited in that infuriating way of his.