Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
He mutters, “I’d like to, but in life, there are things you do and things you just don’t do, and then there are responsibilities, right and wrong, painfully awkward and not worth painfully awkward.”
“I think we’d get through it. The good ol’ we’ve got this, except for once, it’s not a bunch of bollocks.”
“Bollocks?” he echoes.
“Your music has me in a British mood,” I tell him.
It’s so wild that we can talk about this, but maybe not knowing each other makes it easy. We haven’t established a version of normal for ourselves yet. We haven’t laid down hard boundaries that we can’t cross. We’ve been blatantly ourselves with each other right from the start. It’s so wonderfully, creatively, incredibly, and startlingly refreshing.
He has. But you, on the other hand? You’re lying to him.
I am, but I’ve told him more of my truths than I’ve ever told anyone. He’s a safe person to talk to. He has a good heart.
Tell him the truth, then, before you hurt him more than you’re already going to.
I open my mouth to do it. I don’t have the words, but hopefully, they’ll come. Maybe he’ll let me stammer through this and explain myself and understand why I was desperate enough to do this and why I can’t do it anymore now.
Because I love my dad.
Because I never expected to like the man who hurt my family.
Luca thinks I’m parting my lips for another reason entirely.
And that’s right when he kisses me.
Chapter five
Luca
Is this a bad idea? Undoubtedly, yes.
Am I going for it right now anyway? Also, undoubtedly, yes.
I claim Callie’s mouth, meaning to be tentative, but the way she meets me halfway destroys my reservations and my resolve. Is it playing on repeat in the back of my mind that the only reason she’s doing this is because she wants something from me? Yes. Because I’m rich, and she’s already confessed that her family is desperate? Also yes.
I had issues with that before the accident, but it’s twice as bad now. Now, with a face that definitely isn’t pretty and being one step away from a hermit—a rich hermit who can cook, but basically a hermit nonetheless—it’s hard for me to gather up enough self-esteem to believe that this crazy amazing woman wants me as badly as I want her.
I tell my brain to fuck off, but it doesn’t listen. It’s hard to be yourself when yourself means being scarred and alone.
I know she signed the paperwork, but still. How much does that really protect a person when it comes right down to it?
Her fingers thread into my still-damp hair, clenching the strands as she opens her mouth and deepens the kiss. She was going to say something, and I surprised her, but she’s not surprised anymore.
There are a thousand reasons why this is a bad idea, the foremost being that I don’t do casual sex. I’ve never done casual sex in my life. Is it better or worse that this doesn’t feel so casual, and this woman doesn’t feel like a stranger?
She feels like one of the only people on this earth who gets me.
Even when I was in contact with many different people, when I had friends galore and met a surge of humanity on an almost nightly basis, when I was invited to industry events and private parties, when I was constantly surrounded by noise and glamour, I don’t think anyone got me the way Callie did within just a few minutes of meeting me.
If she’s fake kissing me because she has a plan, then she’s very good at it. She’s good at how she whimpers as my tongue strokes hers. She’s good at the way she tastes like cherries, as though she couldn’t resist sneaking a few from the ingredients she bought on the way over here. She also smells like strawberries in the summer. She’s kindness itself, and it pours out of her, wrapping around me like fragrant smoke.
She drags her teeth along my lower lip as she draws back, unleashing the feral side of me that I can barely keep in check. “You’re a good kisser.” She doesn’t say that like she was expecting the opposite and is happy to be proven wrong. She says it with a heady dose of wonder, blown pupils, and the softest smile with her kiss-swollen lips.
The last brain cells I was using to think and reason with shrivel up as rapidly as water-starved plants under an unrelenting sun.
“Thanks.” I know the side of my mouth is hard with scar tissue. That it’s not normal, and she just felt it. She doesn’t have a weirded-out, sickened expression though.
“Luca, I—”
I kiss her again before I lose my nerve, starved for the feel of her, the taste of her, and the sounds she makes. It’s not just human companionship that I need after all this time. That’s not why I’m so desperate to kiss her and touch her. It’s because I lay awake all last night thinking about the woman who broke into my life like a storm, shattering all the preconceived notions I had about the world.