Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
“Is that all?” I say and it takes all the air I have in my lungs. Taking a step forward and closing the space between us, my heart thumps chaotically in my chest.
She twists her fingers around one another nervously. “I also,” she starts to say and then swallows. “I was wondering if you still … if you were interested …”
“In what?” My eagerness gets the best of me. Make this easy for me, Jules, and I’ll make everything right. I promise you, sweetheart, I’ll make it up to you.
“If you’d like to maybe go out again? If that’s what we were doing?” A nervous huff of a laugh accompanies her proposition. I stare at her a moment, thinking it’s just too good to be true. She came back to me. There’s a saying about that, but it’s not meant for real life. It’s not meant for men like me.
“If you still want me,” Jules adds, the raw vulnerability so thick in her voice.
“I never stopped wanting you,” I say, my voice barely a murmur. Her doe eyes never leave mine as I gently push her jacket off her shoulders. If she thinks I don’t want her, she’ll know better soon enough.
“Mason,” she says and gasps as I lean down and kiss her neck. Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s just that my body knows hers. But I’m not waiting for apologies or excuses or explanations.
I need to feel her.
“Mason, stop.” She pushes her hands against my chest, shrugging her jacket back on as I take a step back. “I need you to know that I’m worried we’re going too fast. I’m worried that this isn’t going to last.”
A deep breath steadies me as I stare down at my sweetheart. “I told you, Jules. If you’re with me, then you’re with me and that’s all there is to it.” I take her hand in mine and kiss one knuckle, then another.
“Mason,” she whimpers as if I’ve broken her heart. She has no idea. I turn her hand over and kiss her pulse, my heart beating faster.
“No more of this running from me or from us, Jules. Are you with me?” I ask her, feeling more vulnerable than I ever have in my entire life. I whisper, “Are you mine?”
“I don’t know that my heart is mine to give, Mason. It’s broken and I don’t know if it will heal the right way.” Jules sniffs and looks ashamed, but she has no idea how much I understand. I truly do.
Grief is a journey and she doesn’t have to go it all alone.
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her into me. “You don’t have to be perfect, Jules, in order to be perfect for me.” I kiss her hair and hope that she can understand. “I want you how you are today, and tomorrow I’ll want you how you are then.”
Jules buries her head into my chest, her hair brushing against my chin and I kiss the top of her head. “Why are you so perfect, Mason?” she says and relaxes in my embrace. “How do you know just the right words to say?” Her voice is soft and relaxed as she molds her body to mine and that’s when I know I’ve won her over.
“I’m not perfect, Jules.” My heart aches in my chest, knowing just how imperfect I am. And how imperfect I am for her. She has no idea. We aren’t meant to fit together, but I’ll force the pieces to line up and pretend it’s meant to be.
For her. Because I owe her that much.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you came back,” I whisper and run my hand in soothing circles along her back.
Julia
I asked you to leave.
I need to be alone.
But you stayed in my head.
My heart and my home.
I asked you to leave me,
But you won’t go away.
When I go to find you tomorrow,
I only hope that you’ll stay.
Mason’s bedroom is so much darker than mine. Full of deep grays and dark wood. It matches the rest of his home, I suppose. His curtains are thick velvet and shut tight. Even with hardly any light, I can see him, all of him. His muscles ripple in the faint light. It makes Mason seem so much more dominating, which is criminal.
He already owns me, consuming me with his presence. But right now, at this very moment as he towers over me, skimming his fingers over my sensitized skin, I’m weaker for him than I’ve ever been in my entire life.
“Mason.” I murmur his name as he lays me down on his bed. I turn my head to the side and arch my back as he leaves open-mouth kisses down my neck. We’re both naked, but it’s more than that. So much more. We’ve been here before plenty of times, but this is different. We’re bared to each other.