Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
“You do?”
He nodded, splaying his fingers wide on those full thighs that seemed to be straining the seams of his jeans.
Was he sure?
“You’re a human pastry,” Henri told me, meeting my gaze straight on.
I wiped my face one more time, still not sure I believed him. My voice gave it away as much as my words did. “I am?”
“You are.”
“A good pastry?” I asked, half joking, half serious. “Or the kind you get at the gas station?”
The muscles at his throat strained. “A good pastry,” he confirmed.
So he didn’t mind me in that way. Couldn’t he have just admitted that in the first place? A little bit of relief loosened my body, and I’d swear his facial expression softened at the same time, not much but some. And it was really so unexpected that I couldn’t help but smile a little as I dabbed at my face. All I said was “Oh. Thanks, Henri.”
His sigh was so soft. “Don’t.” A short groan grumbled through him. “I forget you can’t tell how I’m feeling without me saying anything. At the ranch, everyone is aware of everyone else’s emotions at all times. I don’t hide anything because I can’t. I like the way you….” He sighed once more, piercing me with a look that was real close to being pleading. “Please. Stop crying.”
I was a sucker for a few things. Big muscular men, puppies, children, and the word “please.” And coming out of Henri? I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t stop brushing tears off my face.
He looked at me for another second, his expression going almost pained before he scooted across the bench seat until he sat right beside me.
I watched as he slipped a hand between my back and the cushion, and then, with his opposite hand, he gently wiped under one of my eyes and then the other. And while I sat there, in a mix of sadness for the past and the present, fear of the unknown future, and the most unexpected kind of surprise as the hand he’d used on my tears went to his nose. He took a sniff of his damp finger, the tendon at his throat flexing, and before I could ask what that was about, he moved again. That palm went to the back of my head, and he drew my forehead to his shoulder.
I let him.
I let my head fall to the spot along his thick trap muscle and neck, as he sighed, “Poor little Cricket.”
My bones might have well been nonexistent the way I slumped against him even more. I was human jelly. Cinnamon jelly according to him.
He wasn’t my parents, Matti, Sienna, or Duncan, but this didn’t feel wrong. Didn’t feel cheap. It made me feel better.
Henri made me feel better.
“You’ll see Matti and Sienna again.” His warm fingers on my skin felt like straight magic. “I haven’t lived anywhere new in a long time, but I know it’s hard. You’ll settle in with time.”
I’d been so caught up on keeping my shit together that I hadn’t let myself appreciate the way he smelled again. How much I liked it. Up close, it was even better the second time around. It took all the strength in my body to act normal, to breathe like I always did when his natural body odor and deodorant smelled like rain and cedar.
His fingertips moved, skimming along my back through the thin material of my shirt. I could feel the heat of his palm on the back of my head. His breath was soft on my ear like he had his head bent toward me.
I wasn’t starved for affection, but….
“You’ll make more friends,” he seemed to promise in a steady, strong voice.
I didn’t trust mine, or really even myself, honestly, so all I did was nod. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t too worried about making new friends, but that was a lie. There were a lot of things I was uncertain about, things I was mourning that were human-shaped and not human-shaped, and that was the freaking truth.
And fortunately for me, he smelled good, and he was warm, and he was being so nice, and I knew he would have done this for anyone getting upset around him. He’d said everyone on the ranch was his, and I believed that he believed it. By default, I guess that made me the same, in a way.
One of many.
But it was something.
Being needed could be such a crippling thing, but it could also give you more purpose than you could ever imagine. It could make the crappiest day brighter. I understood that firsthand now.
So I wasn’t going to pull away and not take what was offered. What I was going to do was sit there and soak up his scent and the reassurance his body gave me. He was no Matti, his presence was no warm, friendly hug to my soul, but it was something nice in a totally different way. Like hugging a domesticated bear.