Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
I liked letting my guard down for once and just…trusting myself again. It's been so long since I've done that. For years, I've blamed myself for being stupid enough to fall into Daniel's trap. I've told myself if I were just smarter, if I'd just looked a little harder, if I'd just trusted that little voice that whispered that I wasn't ready, then none of it would have happened. But the truth is, I didn't do anything wrong.
I was eighteen, dating a guy who knew how to be charming and put on a show. He knew how to slip beneath my defenses, say all the right things, and act like he genuinely cared about me. He's the one who did something wrong. He's the one who lied, manipulated, and used me in some sick game with his friends.
That isn't on me.
I don't think I've ever let myself believe that before tonight. But sitting across from Briggs, listening to him tell me that Daniel is the one who fucked up? For the first time, I felt the weight I've been carrying just…dissolve.
It felt good. Freeing.
It made me realize something else, too.
What Daniel did isn't on Briggs, either. I can't hold him accountable for something he didn't do. I can't judge him by the actions of an asshole I knew in college, either. That isn't fair to him.
He deserves to be weighed and measured by his own actions, his own morality, and his own deeds. He deserves a chance. The thought scares the hell out of me. I can't lie about that. But…I think not giving him that chance might scare me just as much.
I don't want to wake up next week or next year and wonder whether I let something amazing slip through my fingers because I couldn't or wouldn't trust my own judgment again. I don't want to wake up five years from now and realize that I'm still chained to what happened, unable to move beyond it.
I just want…peace. I want more of what I had tonight.
I want Briggs, dammit.
I flip onto my back with a groan, my body a livewire. I kick the blankets off, trying to cool myself down, but it's no use.
Is he really a virgin?
It's hard to imagine that someone who looks like him, someone his age, someone with his status and his options would just…wait. And yet, I don't think he was lying.
Briggs Ward is a virgin.
And God help me, but there's something attractive about that. It's not that he's untouched or pure or any of that nonsense. I don't care about that. It's that he's confident enough in his own skin, in his own needs, and in his vision for his future to hold steady. Not many people could.
But he does. He has.
I'm living proof that sex and love aren't the same thing. I didn't love Daniel. I liked him a lot. I was eighteen, and sex seemed like the natural progression of a relationship at the time.
Looking back afterward, I realized how wrong I was about that…how much I ignored the little voice saying I wasn't ready yet. But at the time? I thought it was the next logical step, that it's what I had to do to get from point A to point B.
God knows, I'm not the only one. The pressure to have sex is intense in college. If you aren't doing it, there's something wrong with you. If you're doing it too much, there's something wrong with you. It's like there is no right choice, and we all just flounder around, trying to figure it out. We're not allowed to make the decision that's right for us without someone having an opinion because they would have chosen differently.
But people like Briggs? They know themselves enough to know what's right for them. They trust themselves enough to make the decisions that are right for them. And they listen to that little voice when it speaks.
Yeah, that's attractive. It's attractive as hell.
I wish I'd had that confidence and wisdom at eighteen. At twenty-four, I still don't have it. Not yet. I've avoided dating, afraid to fuck it up again.
A soft sound whispers through the vent separating my room from the guest room, so faint I think maybe I imagined it at first, or maybe that it's just him shifting around in his sleep. And then I hear it again, a little louder this time.
"Tia."
My heart thuds against my breastbone, jolting so strongly it's like an electric shock to my system.
Is he dreaming about me right now?
"Tia. Fuck, just like that," he groans, his voice muffled.
Oh.
Oh, my god.
I bite my lip, trying to stifle a whimper, trying not to breathe so I can hear him better. I don't think he's asleep. He's moving around on the bed, his voice louder now.
"Goddamn, beautiful. That hand feels so perfect on my cock," he groans.