Page 121 of To Hate Adam Connor

“I do. We’ll make it okay, Lucy. I’m here for you. I have no intentions of letting you hide yourself from me.”

“You don’t understand,” she insisted, her body pulling away.

I put my hand on her back and pulled her flush against my chest, our noses inches apart, her breath becoming mine.

“Don’t hide from me, Lucy. Don’t pull away.”

“I’m so tired,” she whispered, her body still alert, still ready to put distance between us. “I’m so tired of trying to hold everything up and just messing things up even further. I talked to Catherine.” She sighed and dropped her forehead to my chin, her hands curling into her chest in between us. “I don’t even know why I did it. That’s not true, I know why I did it. I thought…maybe, you know. Maybe she’d be there for me. Maybe she’d do something and everything would be okay. She is family after all; that’s what family does. That’s what Olive does for me.”

“I take it that didn’t go well.”

A humorless laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. Every time I talk to her, happy or sad, she has a way of killing something inside me.”

“I’ll hold you up, Lucy. You can trust me. I see who you are. I see who you are, and I want you to choose me. I want you to open your eyes and look at me so you can see that I have what it takes, that I can take care of your heart for you.”

“I don’t hate you anymore.” Her fingers moved on my chin, on my neck, her touch a searing mark on my heart.

I wanted this girl…this strong, beautiful girl. I wanted her to be mine. To hold her hand and walk on the street. To smile with her. Do simple things. Things other people took for granted. I wanted to laugh with her.

I wanted to sneak into her heart just as I’d sneaked into her bedroom.

“I don’t hate you anymore, Adam Connor, but I can’t love you. I can’t fall for you like that. I don’t want to break like them.”

“Lucy,” I murmured. “Do you think even for one second that you’d let anyone break you? Don’t you see who you are when you look in the mirror? If someone’s heart is breaking, you’ll be doing all the damage.”

“You would. You and your son would break me.”

“Aiden loves you.”

“And I love him. But when you break my heart, I’ll lose him, too. Because of you…being an asshole,” she said with the first signs of amusement in her tone. “I’d lose both of you.”

“So you’re sure it’d be my fault. Something I’d cause.”

“Have you looked at me? I’m an angel.”

I tilted her head back and pressed a soft, quick kiss on her lips. “Let’s not play games, Lucy. I want your heart, and I will have it. Let’s not play, let’s skip those parts.”

“Hmm.” Her lips moved against mine, and she cupped my chin in her hands. “Brat.”

Coming from her lips, it didn’t sting. “Just because you are who you are, do you think you can take anything you want?”

Her finger parted my lips and pushed into my mouth. I grazed her skin with my teeth then gently sucked on it. She moved closer.

“I don’t want much, Lucy. You should’ve seen that by now.”

“Yet you still want my heart.”

“I want a chance to have your heart. I’ll do the rest. Just forget about your stupid curse and trust me. That’s all I want.”

With her palm on my cheek, her lips pressed against mine.

Time stood still as she kissed me like she’d never kissed me before.

“You wouldn’t be good to my heart, Adam Connor,” she whispered against my lips. “You’re already making it hurt.”

I wove my hand through her hair and held her head still as I took over her lips. She let me. She moaned so sweetly, so ready for me already.

Did she know her hand was shaking as it lay on my cheek? That she was falling for me even as I kissed her like she was already mine? Did she know how much she was ruining me?

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