Page 108 of My Heart Still Beats
He comes near me then, grips my shoulders. “Are you ready for everything, Tessa? Because once I kiss those lips, I’m going to want to rip your clothes off, suck on your gorgeous tits, suck all the juice out of your pussy, and then I’m going to fuck you hard. Hard and fast and raw. Becausethat’show much I want you.”
I jerk backward at his words.
He stands abruptly, rakes his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, Tessa. Those words should have never come out of my mouth. Certainly not today, after what you’ve been through. Probably not ever.” He sits down. “Can you forgive me?”
I reach out and caress his cheek. His expression is so tortured, so full of anguish. He’s hurting for me. But he’s hurting for himself, too, and that’s why he lashed out.
“I can forgive you,” I say. “And you’re right. I’m not ready for that.”
But I want to be.
Because all those things he just described? I want them. From him.
Only from him.
“Icanstop with a kiss,” he says. “I learned self-control a long time ago. But that’s not even the point. I want our first kiss to be perfect, something you’ll always remember, and if I kiss you now, it will forever be tainted with grief for your father. Plus, something’s still bothering you. Something about that bartender in Jamaica. Something…” He rubs his forehead. “I can’t kiss you yet, no matter how much we both want it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ben
Tessa, Eva, and their mother, Carlotta, go home to Carlotta’s house later that day.
I brought them to my place because it was closer to the hospital, and I wanted them secure.
Sherlock drove them home, but I didn’t accompany them.
Tessa needs some space.
She’s as strong a woman as I’ve ever met, but she’s struggling with so much, and all I can do is think about her—think about getting inside of her beautiful body, not only because I want to desperately, but also because it would ease some of my own suffering.
Fucking Dirk Conrad.
But I can’t blame him.
No. I have only myself to blame for getting involved with that stupid gang of lowlifes, anyway.
I knew better, but I did it anyway. I did it to rebel against my life.
My hard fucking life.
Never in a million years did I consider that there was something better out there. That Braden, Dad, and I would someday never want for anything.
That idea wasn’t even on my radar back then. I was thinking about all the beef jerky I could eat and some money to take a girl out the way she deserved for once.
It wasn’t until four years later, when I was twenty-one and Braden was twenty-four and we met the Ames sisters, that we were able to get our business off the ground and market Braden’s invention.
Nothing can be proved.
Even then, I was smart enough to take every precaution we needed to take.
In fact, I was the brains behind the whole thing.
I had to be. The other three were fucking idiots.
But when push came to shove, itwasall my idea.
A man lost his life.
