Page 64 of Hunted Innocence

I want so much more.

I wanteverything.

And I’m sure that I sound ungrateful, maybe even selfish, but I deserve it, too. When he stands then takes a step backward, I close my legs, feeling overly vulnerable in the moment. Then he runs his fingers through his hair, almost as if he is trying to think of what to say next.

He doesn’t have to think of anything.

“I don’t want that,” I state. “I want sex, love, and maybe even children one day if I can have them. I want it all.”

“Even if I were going to have sex with you again, I won’t be giving you that. No kids. No love.”

Blinking, I push myself up so I’m sitting with my legs hanging off the side of the bed. “Grayson,” I whisper.

He shakes his head once. “You aren’t getting it,” he begins. “The life I lived. The fucked-up shit I’ve been through. Sure, Theron and Merrick have been able to find a life that includes love and children, but that is not me. I can’t bring a child anywhere near me. I’m not fucking right.”

“Don’t you want to give a child more than you had? More love, more protection?” I ask. “You would love and appreciate an innocent child more than anyone else probably would.”

He snorts, then takes another step backward. I’m losing him. I’m losing him completely, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get him back. He’s going to walk out of this apartment, and I’m not going to see him again.

I need to make sure that he knows just how good and special he is. That any child, any woman, would be lucky to call him a partner. That any baby would be lucky to have him as a father. He can love, too. I’ve felt nothing but the beginnings of love with him. I thought we could be forever.

What he’s offering me, though, it’s not enough. If he truly wanted me for me, all of me, then he would not hesitate to giveme everything he has and more. Or maybe this is all he has, and that’s okay, too. It just means that we are not meant to be together. That there is someone else out there who can love him better.

“I can’t do it.”

“Then we can’t go any further. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

Saying those words stings. It makes my entire body ache, but they needed to be said. I’m not sure what I expect Grayson to do, but it isn’t to nod once, then turn around, and walk out of the room, then the apartment.

I hear the door close and lock, the sound echoing as if the whole building is completely empty. It bounces off every room in the small apartment and grinds my already decimated heart to fine dust.

Tears don’t fall down my cheeks, mainly because I have none left inside my body to do so. Instead, I change into my pajamas, slide into bed, and flick the lights off. I move by habit and routine only.

I lie down on my pillow, the organic bamboo sateen sheets cool against my skin. I whimper, but I don’t cry. Tears evade me, but I feel no less devastated by what’s happened. Maybe I should have just accepted his offer and then tried to slowly ease into something more physical than his mouth between my legs.

Although I can’t deny that I rather enjoy it when he has his nightly dessert, I missed it so much that it didn’t take me long to climax at all. But there is more to a relationship than oral, and as much as I need more, he deserves more, too.

Grayson is amazing in so many ways. He deserves everything good in the second half of his life, and he won’t get that with me. Not if he’s constantly worried about my mental or physical state. He needs someone healthy, not someone who has been through the same wringer he has.

So I’m going to release him.

As much as I want to keep him.

I want Grayson to find his everything. His happily ever after. He’s all those things to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m them to him. And that doesn’t mean that I can sit around and watch him fall in love with someone else.

It’s time for me to go.

I make an instant decision to pack a bag and leave.

There’s nothing for me in Nights any longer other than Brody. He will always be there to support me, no matter where I live or what I do. It’s time for me to go somewhere far away. Maybe somewhere with a beach.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

NADINE

Driving awayfrom Nights shouldn’t make me want to cry, but it does. Every single mile I drive farther away causes more tears to slide down my cheeks. I’d planned on calling Brody on my way out of town, but even fifty miles out, I’m still crying.

I figure between now and the next two hundred miles, I’ll be able to call him. I’ve made a decision to drive to South Carolina and start my new life on the beach. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for work or where I’m going to live, but now that I don’t have to look over my shoulder for Landon, I have the time to figure it out.

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