Page 90 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
I do know I won’t be able to stand it when she tells me she’s leaving for good. I know I’ll beg. Fuck, I can already see it, me on my knees at the door, pathetic and broken—
“Are you hungry?”
Her soft question is so unexpected I don’t answer for a second. She trails her fingertips up and down my forearm, waiting for me to respond.
“I . . . I could eat.”
“I saw you got some spaghetti from the store. How about if I make that?”
She’s just hungry. She’s going to make some food, then pack her bags and leave. Don’t get your fucking hopes up, idiot.
“That would be fine.” My voice is thick. I turn my face to her hair and inhale. She always smells so good. Fresh. Warm. Clean. I guess that’s because she’s all of those things.
How the fuck is she still here?
She makes a move to get up, but I pull her back against me so quickly I think I scare her a little bit. Her big blue eyes get even bigger, and don’t blink. I loosen my grip on her arms; the last thing I want is for her to be scared of me.
“I’d never hurt you.” Now my voice sounds like a growl, low and harsh in my throat.
“I know.”
She looks sincere, and a little confused. Maybe I didn’t scare her. Now that I think about it, she’s never been scared of me. Even at the beginning when I was such a gigantic, snarling prick, the kind of prick who makes armed police officers take an intimidated step back, she’s never been afraid.
Even after the story I told her.
I say abruptly, “You don’t have to cook for me.”
Her eyebrows draw together. She shakes her head, like I’m making no sense. “I know. I want to.”
My chest feels like there’s a thousand-pound weight on it. Jesus Christ, hope is fucking terrifying.
“And . . . you don’t have to stay with me now . . . I won’t try to stop you from leaving.”
I specifically don’t say I won’t beg. There will definitely be begging and pleading, but I won’t try to stop her. She’ll just have to listen to me crying like a goddamn infant while she walks out the door.
She touches my face. Her eyes are soft. “So you’d let me go, just like that? You think it’s fair to introduce me to the best pancakes on earth and then expect me to live without them?”
Do I hear a chiding tone in her voice? Is she . . . teasing me?
The faintest smile touches her lips. “You used to have such a good poker face, sweetie. And now look at you. You might as well have that Jumbotron from Times Square on your forehead.”
Everything inside me comes to a screeching, rubber-burning stop.
Sweetie. She just called me sweetie.
I can feel my face doing something strange. Watching it, Chloe’s eyes get even softer.
“Don’t get all mushy on me now, rock star, you’ve got a bad reputation to uphold. How are we going to keep convincing everyone you’re such a grouchy dick if you go around with that face from now on?”
I can barely speak, such is my burning, agonizing hope. “Which face is that?”
She leans in and kisses me softly on the mouth. “Your madly-in-love, glowingly happy, finally-sprung-from-hell face.” She purses her lips and looks at the top of my head. “We’ll have to do something about that black cloud that’s missing, too. Everyone’s going to wonder what’s happened to that.”
I grab her, roll her onto her back, and stare down at her. Hope and love and anguish and pain and a million different emotions bang around the inside of my chest, bursting inside my skull. “What are you saying? What are you telling me? Just say it!”
I’m panting and shaking. My face is hot. My throat is tight. I might be having a heart attack.
But my angel is calm as a buddha. She reaches up and cups my face. “I’m saying that I’m going to make us some spaghetti, A.J. Everything else you need to know I told you just a little while ago after you carried me in from the rain.”
