Page 103 of The Love Lie
“Let me keep you.”
He tightens his arms around her, every inch of them molded together as if made to be, and presses one final kiss to the base of her neck.
“Please, Sam. Let me keep you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
cooper
He feelsthe change before he even opens his eyes. It’s in the rigid set of her shoulders, the slight quiver to her breathing, the pulse pounding beneath her skin, the heaviness of her stare—a weight he can feel behind his closed eyelids.
Kiss me, he hears her voice again.
Was it a dream?
Was any of it real?
Love me, he wants to tell her back.Sam, I need you to love me.
For once, he’s the one who’s too afraid to ask. So he waits. All morning, he waits. While they get out of bed. While they get dressed. While they eat breakfast. While they step out the door with her suitcase in tow and she snorts at the sight of his truck.
“What?” she says. “No chopper?”
“I’m not interested in making time move faster today.”
The words are a soft volley just itching to be smacked out of the park.
She swallows and looks away.
He keeps waiting, trying not to push, trying not to press. They hold hands and make small talk for the entire hour-and-a-half drive. All the while he waits for her to offer some sort of an explanation for why, after the weekend they just had, she’s still planning on saying goodbye. It’s not until she grips the strap of her purse and gives him a fake-as-fuck smile in the parking lot of the airport that he realizes the truth.
She’s not planning on saying a goddamn thing.
“Well,” she mutters with an uneven sigh. “That was—”
“If you say the wordfunright now, Cuj, so help me god,” he snaps, all patience and poise vanishing in a blink as that cold, hard reality sets in. “You were really going to leave, just like that? I can’t believe you.”
“Well, how do you want me to leave, Cooper?” she snaps right back. “No tomorrow. That was the rule.”
“The rule.” He grinds his teeth.
“Yes.” She lifts her chin and offers him a look so high-and-mighty he’s amazed she hasn’t passed out from a lack of oxygen. “The ruleyouagreed to.”
“We agreed to a lot of fucking rules, Sam, and we broke every single one of them.”
“Not that one.”
“Why?”
She turns her face away. He locks the doors in a desperate attempt to keep her close.
“You’re not getting out of the car until you tell me why.”
“You know why.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I already told you. I ruined Emily’s life once, and I can’t do it again.”
