Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
That was fine in the meantime.
I could wait.
I just hoped one day he’d choose me and fall in love with me. And maybe love for us, though it wouldn’t look like what was produced by the world, could resemble something special. Two broken people becoming whole together.
11
SANTA BARBARA
Jamie
I’d just told Jordyn who I was. Why had I hesitated? I’d been comfortable with myself for the longest. But before that?
I remembered Little Brody called me a eunuch. It was as if my eldest brother and tormentor had uncovered a hidden secret I’d tried desperately to bury and destroy because I couldn’t stand on equal footing with him. Couldn’t measure up to his standard. I’d wondered the same thoughts throughout my teenage years—thoughts of whether I could be attracted to someone. There was that time with Willow. I tried. But protection was at the crux of that. Then I’d tossed the notion into a closet, boarded it up, doused it in gasoline, and lit a match. No exaggeration. Now I trusted the man I had become—and I wasn’t any lesser of a man because of my identification as ace.
As I knelt against the freestanding tub, the towel in my hand brushed across Jordyn’s cheek. A smidge of dirt lingered from when that vagrant had grabbed her earlier.
It was strange. The same hands that wanted to feel the man’s pulse fade into nothingness wanted more than anything to discover her. Every part of her. And even though Jordyn hated me, she’d so kindly accepted me. The very part of me it took years to accept.
Instead of using the towel, my thumb brushed the corner of her mouth. My finger paused longer than necessary. Not because she was trying to tempt me. She did such a good job at that. But she wasn’t this time. This time, her eyes closed, and she seemed to lose herself in the touch while I lost myself in the nearness of her. Being near Jordyn was like standing on the edge of something sacred—and dangerously human.
Per other people … I wasn’t human.
People had a lot of misconceptions about asexuality. That those who identify as ace didn’t have desires. Couldn’t fall in love. Were cold.
Numb.
I’d been that, though, cold. Numb. The last seven years away from my cl—ahem, Clan MacKenzie was spent in a cold, numb world across enemy lines.
Anyway, truth be told. I didn’t fall for any woman who sauntered by me with an hourglass figure—Jordyn had that. Man, she was the definition of the perfect shape. The real solid truth was that some people like me just didn’t fall in love with everyone.
A sense of duty made me see Jordyn at the Chelomey estate. I mean, I really saw Jordyn. Broken. Radiant. Fierce and trembling as she thrust a rake into that dog’s mouth. I might’ve named it respect then. But in the last six torturous weeks of her hating me from afar, something else crept up on me.
Silence can do something with the mind. The head. And what I felt for Jordyn didn’t just stir me physically. Didn’t just move my heart—it rattled every bolt in my soul.
And worse … it stirred other parts of me.
Parts that had been silent my entire life. Parts that never even considered coming alive for dirty magazines. There was a time I’d been desperate to prove I’d grown into a man and that I could conform, so I’d bought magazines. More magazines than I could count. All at one time.
Different races. Different sizes. Different fantasies. Nothing worked. Except, I noticed some of the magazines had a better grade of paper.
I wrung the towel, buying myself time to think. We should’ve been unpacking what happened to her this morning. The assault. The trauma. Instead, I’d somehow become the topic. My sexuality. Feelings. My fascination with Jordyn.
“I know you guard your heart now, JorJor.” The words came out in my deep voice, low and guarded. “I mean Jordyn.”
“You can … uh, call me that if you want,” she murmured.
Good. I saw it as a name for her that only I had. “You’ve got every reason to. But deep inside, I gotta believe you’ve got the same beautiful heart. The one I saw in that cage.”
Jordyn’s gaze locked onto mine. Something wordless passed between us.
And just like that, I couldn’t take it anymore. I handed her the towel and stood, trying to ignore the fire of passion burning in my veins. Every muscle screamed to flee. Before you say something stupid. Before you do something stupid.
Like taking advantage of a beautiful woman who didn’t yet know how to love herself.
I’d never felt this way about anyone. Even when I was younger, I couldn’t understand when Rory, twenty-six now, I believe, told me about the girl he’d fallen in love with one week as opposed to the girl he fell in love with the previous week. He’d been in high school then and spoken with such a light in his eyes. I wanted to believe him.