Page 134 of Pretend
“You have these cute little brown dots in parts of your body.”
“I do?” I knew I had some, but I didn’t realize there were exactly ten.
“Mhm.” He kisses my forehead and grabs my face. He kisses my skin under my bottom lip where I know there’s one.
“You have one here.” He whispers against my cheek. Then he kisses a spot on my breast. “Here.”
He moves to my neck, my lower back, my wrists, and my ankle, kissing every single spot until he gets in between my thighs and kisses the last one that’s on my right leg. Every time he kisses me, I do my best not to melt and climb back into bed with him. I want to feel his beard tickle the inside of my thighs as he kisses me.
“Stella wanted me to leave the hospital. I?—”
“I know what she told you, but Stella is Stella, and there’s a reason why she’s officially my ex-wife.”
I’m silenced. It still doesn’t change the fact that he was stalking me.
“I want my boundaries, Daegan. No more secrets. I mean it.”
“No more secrets.” He agrees before continuing. “I can’t promise I won’t love you any less than you deserve.”
He tilts my head back until the side of my head rests on his shoulder, and he holds me by my throat as his tongue slips through my lips.
What is it about getting choked that fires me up?
“I’m not sure I can forgive you for stalking me.” I break the kiss just as sunrise begins to shine on our faces.
“And that’s okay. I can live with that. But I can’t live without you. Do you know why I gave you one colored flower in a bouquet full of black ones?”
I shake my head, refusing to look at him. This feels weirder than catching Jack with Bailey. The taboo of it clings onto me like acid, burning layer into layer, and I can’t bear to look at those eyes I’ve come to admire so much.
“Look at me. I’ll say this once, but I refuse to live with any more regrets.”
I look at him, and his eyes darken with pure intensity.
“You are the color in my black-and-white world. You are the single rose in a field full of them. You are the one notorious star in a sky full of them. You are the one soul I seek in a world full of them. Even if you can’t see your worth, I see it. If you can’t see the impact you have on me and everyone around you, I feel it. And I will remind you just how magnificent you are. As long as I wake up, you will know how uniquely beautiful you are each day and how profound my love travels for you. It is limitless, infinite, and unbreakable.”
I’m soaking in his words as I melt into his arms. I want to open my mouth to say it back, but Daegan’s watch chimes. He lifts it upwards until Grim’s name appears on the little screen on his wrist with a text message. I give him the privacy he needs to read it. His body stiffens, and so does mine. I look away and stare at the waves crashing against the light brown sand on an empty beach. I close my eyes, enjoying the sound and moment of solace before he tells me anything.
This is what being with a man like him is like. I feel like I’m constantly holding my breath. This life of being with a special operator feels like drowning and then coming back up for air. They’re coming and going at any moment’snotice, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to it. All I know is I want to be with him.
“Listen, baby. I’m leaving on a mission. I have to be back in North Carolina and on a flight tomorrow night.
“Where?”
“You know I can’t say anything.”
I turn around and embrace him. My breasts brush up against his chest. “When are you coming back?”
Worry begins to fuel my veins, and I hold him like he’ll disappear if I don’t. He hugs me back, and I look up at him for the dreadful answer.
He’s quiet. He clenches his jaw, and I frown. I place the mug on a small table, and my brows wilt together somberly. I raise my hand to touch his scars. He closes his eyes as I trail them for a few seconds before letting my hand fall back to my side.
He doesn’t answer me. He opens his eyes, and his stare is cold and distant, as if he already wants to disassociate himself and go into work mode. He walks away to his jeans and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He dresses himself in his pants and lights one up as he walks onto the balcony.
He passes me by, and the wall he likes to put up is all the way down again. There are a million thoughts running through his head as he rests his forearms on the railing. I stare at his dragon back tattoo with snarling teeth and bite my bottom lip as I watch him stressfully smoke.
“You can’t tell me anything?”
He shakes his head.
