AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah,” I mutter.
“Okay… we’ll need—”
I tune her out.
I need more time.Sheneeds more time. There are a million reasons I don’t want to go home, Waverley being one of them, but Scarlet has walls that tower around her heart a mile high, and I’m so fucking close. I know I can tear them down—indefinitely.
But I can’t do that from the city.
“Does that sound like a plan?” Annie says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I scrub at my face, nodding with no idea what she’s said to me. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.”
The walk through the hospital and to the car feels too short, the idea of leaving the estate to go back to that cold empty house making my insides twist up in knots.
Scarlet is, and will forever be, my good. I’d do ten life sentences if it meant having her for a single day. Her place in my world isn’t a want, it’s a need.
If I thought we’d make it, I’d go home happy. I’d go home with a fucking smile plastered on my face and wait for as long as she needed.
But I don’t know that we will.
She isn’t ready.
With my face to the sun, I lean back against her car and think of all the ways I could beg her to love me again—to let me stay.
There’s fear there, I know that much. The way she shut down on me the day after my nightmare showed me that much. But these last few weeks, even if she hasn’t given me anything more—I’m not stupid.
“You may have paid for that car, Sullivan, but it doesn’t mean you get to rub your ass all over it.”
I look over my shoulder and take her in as she approaches me. She’s wearing a pretty dress today, leaving her legs, arms, and chest bare. She’s glowing, her bruises all but gone.
When she’s nearly to me, I twist my body, wondering how I’ll ever go a day without seeing her face smiling up at me like this. “Did I tell you you look beautiful today?”
She bites on her bottom lip, brown eyes glinting at me from beneath her lashes. “No, but when I brought you your coffee this morning, I did spot your raging hard-on.”
I look to the sky and laugh.
She pokes my ribs. “What did Annie say?”
Fuck, I need her.
I need her.
I can’t do this without her—don’t want to.
The idea of sleeping without her wrapped around me.
My leg might be healed, but I’m not.
We’re not.
I swallow, focusing on the two freckles that are littered above the bow of her lips. It’ll be the first and last lie I ever tell her. “It looks good, but the callus isn’t growing as quickly as Annie would like. She wants me to take it easy still.”
Her shoulders drop, and her obvious disappointment makes my heart sink. “I knew you’d been doing too much.”
“Yeah,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “Maybe.”
“Can you fly? I presume it’s fine, but—”
