Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“And what happens when you stop?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you get angry, upset with me? Does that mean that you pull back and close down, and you won’t touch and kiss me or anything anymore?”
Oh, shit. He’d really fucked this all up, hadn’t he? In a bid to make her feel more at ease, he’d made her more upset.
“Baby, no. I’m not ever going to do that again, okay? I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that would make you feel better if I pulled back. I didn’t want you to feel forced into being with me. You’ve already had so much taken from you without permission that I didn’t want to add to that trauma. But if I upset you more, I’m so sorry.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m the one that’s sorry because I know I’m back and forth. I don’t know what I want. I feel so indecisive. I do like when you take control. Maybe I’m worried I like it too much. That I won’t be able think for myself anymore. What if I can’t make decisions? What if I can’t do simple things? What if I’m too scared of life to live?”
Her breathing was growing faster, and her panic was palpable.
“Hey, easy. You’re being too hard on yourself,” he said. “It hasn’t even been two weeks and look how far you’ve grown. You detoxed off a drug that you never even consented to being on. You’re missing patches of memory. Your mother was a complete bitch, forcing you to marry a horrible man. We haven’t got all the answers that we need, and life as you knew it has completely changed. Not to mention, you got kidnapped by a handsome, sexy, intelligent man whom you’re wildly attracted to.”
She stared at him for a long minute, and then she suddenly burst into laughter.
“Hey, I might take offense to that. But I know you’re not laughing at the wildly attractive, sexy man.”
“Of course not. I could never laugh at him. Where is this wildly attractive man?” she teased.
“You brat! I’m the wildly attractive man! So attractive it’s wild.”
“You know, we really need to do something to build up your self-esteem. I’m quite concerned about it.”
“Smartass,” he muttered.
The humor dropped off her face. “Is that all right?”
“Is what all right?” he asked, slightly confused. Then he realized what she meant. “Is your being a smartass all right? Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t like that. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been accused of being a smartass. I didn’t know I was one.”
“Maybe you just needed to be in the right sort of headspace, where you felt safe enough to let the real you out.”
“So this is the real me?” she asked, gazing down at herself. “Messy, still unable to cook, somewhat of a smartass, completely unsure of what she’s doing, sometimes she feels lost and out of control, and other times she’s angry and upset. I’m just a mess.”
Lily waited for him to tell her that she wasn’t a mess.
But he just smiled. “Yeah, you are a mess.”
She gaped at him. Had he really just said that?
“But it’s okay to be a mess. It’s okay not to know everything. It’s all right if you have moments of doubt, fear, and anger. That’s all normal. I’d be more worried if you were completely fine. That would concern me.”
She guessed she understood that. “I suppose I’m just frustrated because it feels like I’m not where you are at. I mean, in the beginning, my plan was just to go along with what you wanted so you’d fall into a false sense of security and then I could escape.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave her a look.
Oops, maybe she shouldn’t have told him that. She gave him a wide smile.
“So that was your plan, was it? Interesting.”
“It’s not my plan anymore, of course,” she reassured him. “I mean, I don’t know exactly when it changed. Maybe it was you taking care of me while I was ill and detoxing. There was no way that my mother would have done anything like that for me. I couldn’t imagine anyone else bathing me and holding my hair back while I was sick. But I actually think it was a culmination of lots of different things that sort of exploded when you kissed me.”
“And now we’re back to how your body feels when I touch and kiss you. Because you still haven’t explained that to me, you know.”
“I haven’t?” she asked weakly. Drat. She’d been hoping he would forget about that.
“No, baby, you haven’t. Are you saying that your body wanted me before your mind?”
Yeah, she hadn’t thought about it quite in that way, but she guessed he was kind of right. Her body had wanted him before her mind had caught up to that fact. And then she hadn’t been quite ready to figure it all out before he’d shocked her with that whole spanking thing.