Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
I swallow hard. “Kelly…”
“You’re the safest thing I’ve ever known,” she whispers. “Finish this and come to me, Ledger.”
Something breaks inside me.
Something heals at the same time. And for the first time in my life, I’m not Ledger. I’m not Riot. I’m not a soldier or a fighter or a monster built from war.
I am just hers.
Twenty-Four
Kelly
He thinks he scares me. I think he anchors me.
For a long moment after Jonas Greene is dragged away, I can’t move. Finally knowing Ledger would be with me soon, I manage to cut the connection from the television that came on not long after Riot left me to go find Jonas. The smart screen came on without warning and the man with the narrow eyes came on the screen and told me to stay online if I wanted to make sure Riot stayed alive.
Of course I wasn’t about to cut him off. Now, I watched him beat a man in the shadows of a strange room praying no matter what was to come it ended with Riot coming home to me. I never thought I would be that woman. The one that can set aside violence and danger as long as it means her man comes home to her. But here I am, waiting like a hopeless, lovesick fool.
In what felt like hours and seconds at the same time he is back with me. Riot stands in front of me, breath ragged, blood on his knuckles, sweat slicking his temples, his chest rising and falling too fast. He’s a storm barely leashed, violence and devotion woven into the same scarred skin.
And I’m not scared.
I should be. Every rational part of me should be screaming to back up, get away, put distance between myself and the man who just beat someone nearly unconscious with his bare hands.
But I remember now. More pieces than before. They click together slowly, like beads sliding down a thread.
Riot holding a door open for me at the bakery. Riot laughing under his breath when I teased him. Riot fixing the light in my kitchen without me asking. Riot touching me like he was afraid I’d break. Riot staring at me like I was the last bit of good in his world.
My heart feels full and tight all at once.
He stands there now, every muscle tense, hands curled like he’s afraid to reach for me, afraid of what I might do, afraid of what he’s shown me.
“Kelly,” he rasps, voice shredded, “I didn’t, I didn’t want you to see that.”
“I needed to,” I whisper.
He flinches. “No. You don’t need that in your head.”
“I needed the truth.”
Slowly, painfully, he lifts his eyes to mine.
His breath catches. “What you saw tonight, Kelly, that is part of the man I am.”
My voice softens as I nod. “You saved me.”
He shakes his head. “I became everything I told myself I wouldn’t be when I’m with you. Everything I didn’t want you to see.”
“You are a man protecting the person he loves,” I counter. “I don’t see where that should be hidden or something to be ashamed of.”
His entire body goes still. Frozen.
“Don’t say that right now,” he murmurs.
“Why not?”
“Because my hands are still shaking,” he whispers. “Because I’m still bleeding. Because I’m one breath away from losing control. And if you say you love me right now, sunshine,” He swallows hard. “I don’t know if I can hold myself together.”
My heart pulls toward him, fierce and aching.
I step closer. “Then don’t.”
His eyes burn. I lift trembling fingers to touch his jaw. He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, just watches me like I’m rewriting every rule he ever had for himself.
“You didn’t scare me,” I whisper. “Not even for a second.”
He exhales shakily, like he doesn’t believe me. So I give him truth the way he understands — slow, steady, sure.
“You want to know what I saw?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He might not be able to.
“I saw someone protecting me,” I explain. “I saw a man fighting someone who tried to destroy my life. I saw someone choosing me over fear. Over pain. Over everything.”
He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, breath breaking. “Kelly,”
“And I remembered us,” I continue softly. “More than before. More clearly.”
His head snaps up.
“You remember it all?”
“I remembered you holding me in the dark,” I share with a rasp of emotion in my voice. “I remembered telling you not to fall in love with me. I remembered,” My voice trembles, “that you did anyway.”
He closes his eyes, pain and relief strangling his features.
“And I remembered loving you,” I whisper. “I remember knowing you were in love with me as much as I love you. It was in your eyes. And it scared me. It scared me to think I could feel so deeply and what if you took it away. I needed to have control. The anxiety we consuming me waiting for this good thing we shared to fall apart. So I pushed you away and I did it hard, baby.”