Page 103 of Hard to Love
“I already talked with Cal about my dad’s house. You and the kids can move in there, no matter what you decide about us.”
“You’re way more than I deserve,” he said hoarsely.
“You’re exactly what I deserve.” Greer murmured against him, her lips teasing his skin.
Alex tilted his head back, grinding it against the pillow. The shadows wrapped around him, slowly loosening the fist in his chest.Be in this moment. You’ll never be here again.
Finally, he opened his eyes and tugged on Greer’s hair to get her to look at him. “Do you know what you do to me?”
With a little ass wiggle, she squirmed against him. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”
“I don’t mean there.” He slipped a hand between their bodies and pressed it against his chest. “I mean in here.”
She blinked slowly. “You have to tell me, Alex.”
“You make me feel things I’ve never felt before. Things I never wanted to feel.”
She dipped her head, but he cradled her face and lifted her chin. This wasn’t something he wanted to say to the top of her head. “In my world, caring about someone the way I care about you was a weakness. It was a way for other gangs to get to you, to cut off your balls.”
“Is that how you felt after Javier was killed?”
“I thought my guts had been torn out of my body.” Even now, his stomach clenched. “But if something ever happened to you, if I ever put you in danger like I did yesterday, if someone ever hurt you because of me…I wouldn’t survive that kind of pain.”
“You’re scared.”
He laughed, a violent huff of air. “You’re just nowfiguring that out?”
“It’s impossible to keep the people you love completely safe. Things happen. Life happens. And when it does, it’s the other people around you who hold you tight, who keep you in one piece. Humans weren’t meant to live in solitude. We die that way. Just atrophy emotionally until there’s nothing left.”
He wanted to close his eyes against her, hide all that was raw and wrong inside him. But she deserved better than a fucking coward. “I don’t know how to do this.”
She leaned in, slowly rubbed her lips against his. It was as if she were trying to breathe her belief in him, in them, into his body. “No, Alex,” she whispered against his mouth. “You’ve just forgotten.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Something about the quiet of the night, about Alex’s confusion, made Greer realize this was her best chance. If she lost Alex tonight in the dark, in this private haven, she would never get him back. Never make him believe.
And he was a man who understood art and beauty and the sensuality of the human body.
But he didn’t realize the beauty of who he was—tattoos, emotional scars, and all. “Come with me,” she said.
“Where?”
“I want you to stand beside the bed.”
“Why—”
She smoothed her fingers across his lips. “Please. For me.” She slid off him and waited.
Alex pushed himself off the bed and stood next to it, bracing his hands on his hips. There in the half-light with his heavy erection and half-inked body, he looked like an exotic fertility god.
Greer scooted off the bed and knelt at his feet.
“What are you—”
“Shush.”
“Jesus.”
