More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Dedicated to anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t belong. Never give up. It will get better. Even when it feels like it never will.
For just a few pained breaths, I can sympathize with my mom.
If she doesn’t want this, then I’ll look like a complete idiot, letting myself get wrapped up in Gracie’s web of attraction for a second time.
Fuck, I forgot how pretty she looks when she begs.
Why did I think it was a good idea to get blackout drunk last night? And why—of all women—did I bring Gracie Hutton here?
So this is how it's going to be, eh? Tyler Bateman, you are in for one hell of a rude awakening.
Of course. A two-in-one—a girl's worst nightmare. Would it kill one freaking guy to want to have silky hair and use a conditioner? Ugh.
“Optimism is for those too scared to go for what they want,”
It’s pretty clear to anyone who comes across Gracie Hutton that the woman is a fucking spitfire.
Vulnerability isn't something that comes naturally to me. When you're raised the way I was, you learn that feelings aren't something that you should share.
Maybe that's why I have always been so withdrawn. If there was nothing for me to feel, then there was nothing to spend my time alone worrying about. I guess in a really messed up way, I'm almost thankful for that.
It has always bothered me—not knowing or understanding how someone can treat themselves as if their life means nothing to them or anyone else. Thinking about how selfish I think that makes her makes me feel nothing but guilt. I don't know the struggle of addiction—not the way she does. So that should mean that I shouldn't get to judge. Right? But I do. Because even though she is the parent, I have been the one taking care of her my whole life.
“You know, if I wasn’t such a confident guy, your staring would have made me self-conscious.” The teasing whisper has my eyes bulging as I gulp air like a fish out of water. “I wasn’t staring,” I argue. He arches a brow and leans toward me, elbows resting on his knees, his fingers mere inches from my thigh. “No? Because I was.” I twist in my seat and stare at him open-mouthed. “Pink is your colour,” he murmurs. His eyes trail over my skin and goosebumps follow. “I didn’t know I had a colour. I thought I looked good in everything.”
“Let me in,” she murmurs quietly, inching closer to me. The seconds flick away slowly around us. “You wouldn't like what you would see.”
She doesn't deserve any more heartbreak in her life. She's too pure.
They say that to let go of your past and move forward, you need to start by accepting whatever it is that you're holding onto so tightly. Only then can you allow yourself to finally be set free of those haunting restraints. Personally, I think it's a giant load of shit.
There's a reason why we distance ourselves from the memories that haunt us. We do it to protect ourselves—to help keep the façade of happiness intact.
Nobody expects anything from you when they know there isn't anything for you to give.
But now . . . now I'm not so sure I even remember what being a strong woman feels like.
I know love isn't easy, but is it supposed to be this hard?
“Either way. He was mediocre, amateur at best. We both know you need someone better. Someone who isn’t going to tell all his friends how good you are in bed and all the things you can do with your tongue. A real man would want to keep that shit to himself, to fantasize about when you’re not together and he thinks about you in bed with his hand around his cock.”
“Is that what I need? A real man?” she asks slowly, almost in a whisper. Her eyes bore into mine, gripping onto them with claws out. I force myself to look away. “It’s what you deserve.”
Fuck. What are you doing to me, Gracie Hutton?
“Where does that leave you then? What's your so-called addiction?” I ask curiously. My skin flares when he turns and locks his eyes with mine. “You, Gray. I think I'm addicted to you.”
His words took me by surprise. It was like someone flipped off the lights in my head. Those eight words might not have been an obvious declaration of love, but I know better than anyone that to Tyler, they may as well have.
My words seem to spark a reaction from inside him because he whips his head to the side and lets out a string of curses before smashing our mouths together.
“Feel how hard my heart is beating,” I mutter, almost begging. “That’s for you. It’s been like that for years, but you never gave me the chance to tell you.”
No matter how hard I try to pretend Gracie hasn't swung a sledgehammer at my defences, I always find myself helping her brush away the smashed pieces.
“I think I'm falling in love with you,”
“You've opened up a part of me that I didn't even know existed, Gray. I know that doesn't mean as much to you as what you said, but it does to me. It means everything.”
The truth is that I am already way too close to actually being in love with him. How could I not be? The rugged, broken, shadow of a man only seems to light up for me, and my God, the beams are so bright that the sun wouldn't dare challenge him.
I'm the jealous type. I'm smart-mouthed and sometimes brash. I don't like to share. I can't cook anything that doesn't come from a microwavable container. I hate talking on the phone—texting works just as well without the awkward silences that come from a phone call. And I would do absolutely anything and everything for the people I love.
If only Braden could see me now. He'd laugh in my face and call me a pussy for letting myself get wrapped up in the hurricane that is Gracie Hutton, falling for her along the way. I wouldn't want to agree with him; I've always hated allowing people to see my weak spots. But he'd be right and I hate lying even more.
It's still such an odd concept to me—caring for someone so intensely that your stomach bounces around, picking fights and throwing rough punches at the rest of your organs whenever you so much as lay eyes on them.
Death by ruthless insults and a criminal death stare, anyone?
“That's cool. Why is he here? In your kitchen? When you're wearing the same amount of clothes you do when you make coffee every morning after I fuck your brains out?”
“If you see her in the lobby, turn around. If she's in the elevator when the doors open, wait for the next one. If you can see her wherever you are, close your fucking eyes. But I don't want to find you so much as breathing the same air as her again unless you want to spend the remainder of your days in a fucking wheelchair. Got it, Cody?”
I have her shoved back against the living room wall before she can finish her sentence.
“Did you want me to lose control? To fuck the attitude out of you?”
He’s beautiful. So beautiful that it makes my chest ache with the fear that one day I won’t be enough for him.
“Yeah?” Please don't say something that will tear me to shreds while I'm standing naked as the day I was born with cum dripping down my thighs.
“Yeah. Or else telling you that I'm in love with you would have been incredibly awkward.”
As if I were right here again, feeling the flutters deep in my belly and Tyler's smile against my lips. And I can't help but feel like that makes me the luckiest damn girl in the world.
I've had plenty of sex in my life, but I'm unapologetically a phone sex virgin.
“I'm going to have you face down on this bed the minute you get home, begging for me to fuck you like the good girl you are,” he groans in my ear, sounding winded—a sound that only intensifies the growing burn in my abdomen. “My perfect, dirty girl.”
And for what? What could possibly be so important that I would drag myself through these shattered walls and shrill silence? My mom. That's who's so important.
“I want to make your world better, Ty. You've gone through enough already without me adding anything else to it.” I lean my head on his shoulder and let my eyes flutter shut. “You've already made my world as bright as it can possibly be. There isn't anything that you and I could go through now that could possibly dull its glow. And that's a promise.”
“Unless you want your brother to walk in on me eight inches deep inside of you, I suggest we get up.”
But I don't need anything like that anymore. Not if I'm with you, Ty. Nothing makes me feel safer than you do.”
“That’s a good girl. Take all of me.”
