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EIGHTEEN
Lily
“You’re worth it.”
Was this a dream?
It couldn’t be because as he looked me in the eyes, I felt the truth in every word he’d voiced.
“You want to know something else?” He got up from where he had been sitting on the bed and walked around to the other side, climbing onto the mattress, positioned in a similar way that I was, lying with his back against the headboard and his legs extended out. “I’m staying right here tonight and tomorrow I’m going to walk out of this hotel with you, and ride with you to the airport, and fly back to LA, where I’m then going to take you home. To my home.”
Was this another dream?
The man I’d grown to care about was willing to put up with all the emotional baggage I came with.
The flip side of that was, despite my warnings, he didn’t really know what he was facing, and in no way was any of this going to be easy.
Yet not a single thing I’d admitted had fazed him.
And that was where another fear came in. Would things become too much for him to handle? Would he end up running, like he probably should?
Because if I grabbed my phone from the other side of the room, the screen would show several messages waiting for me to read and listen to. Texts and voice mails, where words would be screamed and threats would be made.
The darkness …
To the light who was lying beside me.
I looked at Brady, whose eyes wouldn’t leave me. His stare alone could make me feel like the most regal, desired, cared-for queen.
“You really think we’re going to figure this all out?” I asked.
“Trust me.”
I wanted to.
But the last person I’d given my trust to had turned me into this.
“You’re fearless—you know that?”
“And relentless when it comes to something I want.” His arm slid around my shoulders. “I won’t give up, Lily.”
So far, he’d proven that.
“About tonight”—I glanced down my body, at my braless chest and cropped shorts; what I couldn’t see was the ache in my chest, but I was consumed by it—“I need you to be easy on me.”
He caressed my cheek. “I’m not even going to touch you. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’d rather hold you instead.”
Another dream.
This one I didn’t want to wake up from.
My mouth opened, my bottom lip caving inward until my teeth were holding it, releasing it to say, “I need that.”
“I know.” He tapped his chest. “Come here.”
I moved in closer, resting my face just below his neck, circling the small buttons on his shirt. I tried to find relief in the quietness, to ease the ache in my heart, to mute the questions, ones that were coming in so fast and hard that they were making it difficult to breathe.
“I can’t shut my brain off. It’s a straight-up war in there right now.”
