Page 22 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
I laugh harder through my tears. “More than my face?”
“Way more than your face.”
My nervous giggles slow and we just sit here, staring at each other. I don’t move to hide my face again, even though I can feel the press of his gaze, coursing over it.
“It’s really not that bad,” he finally says.
Now I turn my face away, looking toward the window. I brush the tears off my cheeks and feel the raised scar. “Gee, thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”
“I mean it, V. So you have some scars? So what? It makes you unique.”
More tears leak over my lashes. Funny how an eye that’s not even real can still cry. “Tell that to all the little kids who run screaming to their mommies when they see me.”
“Has anyone actually done that? Seriously?” There’s a tease in his voice.
I huff a humorless laugh out my nose. “No, but that’s only because I haven’t been out there.”
“Out where?”
“There,” I answer, flinging my hand in the direction of the window.
There’s a pause, and I can almost hear Rick struggling with himself. “How much can you see?” he finally asks.
Automatically, my hand goes to my face again, but he draws it away and I let him. “I can see most everything, but it’s blurry. Like, I can see your face, but I can’t see the disgust on it.”
“Huh.” He shifts on the bed, so his knee presses against mine. “I can’t remember a hot chick ever calling my face disgusting before. Me, yes, but not my face.”
I take a deep breath, remembering exactly how gorgeous that face is—big blue eyes with crazy long lashes, set in a narrow face with major cheekbones. God, I wish I could really see him.
“Try to imagine walking around with this face,” I say, tossing a hand at mine, “knowing everyone’s gawking at you, and talking about you behind your back.”
There’s a long pause. “V, I think you’re making a bigger thing of this than it is.”
At his words, all the anger I usually reserve for my mom rips unbridled from my core. “Really? Because I almost died, Rick! Chris did die, and so did two other guys on my patrol. That’s a pretty big fucking thing!”
“That’s not what I meant.” His tone is patient, as if I hadn’t just flipped my shit all over him. “I’m not going to say something stupid like I know what you’ve been through, or I know it must have been hard. I don’t know shit, and neither does anyone else who isn’t you. The only thing I do know is that a few scars don’t make you any less incredible.”
More fucking tears. I’ve worked so hard to choke the emotion back, but Rick brings it all pouring out of me and I don’t know why. I drop my head. “I am so fucked up, you don’t even want to know.”
He lifts my chin with a finger, and his touch on my skin knots my insides. But his hand doesn’t linger once I’m looking at him. He lowers it back to his lap. “Don’t push me away, V. I may not know as much as I want to about you, but the thing you need to know about me is I’m a persistent son of a bitch, and I will wear you down.”
I blow out another wet half-laugh-half-sob and scoot back to lean against the headboard. “This isn’t how it went in my head when I fantasized about the first time I got you in my bed.”
He settles in next to me and his shoulder presses into mine. When he speaks, his voice is a seductive purr. “We can fix that anytime you’re ready.”
I bury my face in my hand.
“I’m not going to push you into anything except letting me hang around. If that’s only here in your room, there could be benefits to that,” he says, pressing his shoulder into mine again, “but I wish you’d let me take you out.”
“Where?” I ask, knowing it’s never actually going to happen. “And don’t say star gazing.”
“No star gazing.” I hear the smile as he says it. “But there are definitely places we could go.”
“Like?”
“Well . . . I’m assuming you still eat, right? And the weather’s getting warmer, so there’s the beach, and . . . did I mention eating, ’cause I’m really good at that.”
I pull my knees up, and when I realize I’m looking right at him and there’s no fear, butterfly wings whir in my chest. “So we’ve got food and sand.”
