Read Online Beautiful Storm by Megan Isaacs - Free Book Online Page A

eye him a little longer but decide to let it go. While looking at him, it dawns on me there’s something very different about him.
    “The baseball cap suits you.”
    He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “Bed hair.”

Eight Months Later
    L IZZIE LIES IN my arms, and her steady breath tickles over the skin on my chest. Eight months we’ve been doing this and it’s not getting old, far from it. We’ve spent the whole day watching black and white films, apart from when we ordered pizza, and fucked. I’ll never be tired of that. I slide my hand around her waist to find her hand, entwining it with mine.
    “Noah, are you awake?” Lizzie whispers, her voice breathy.
    Her daft question makes me smile. I just moved. “Yeah.” I tighten my arms around her and lean in to kiss her temple.
    “I love being here with you. Being cocooned in your arms. Held like you fear I might vanish at any second.”
    “You planning on disappearing on me?” I ask. My voice’s gruff and my heart squeezes at the thought. But I do hold her like that.
    “Never,” she answers confidently. And I feel her smile against my chest.
    I let out a relieved breath I didn’t even realise I was holding as she continues.
    “I thought I understood what love was, but the dream became battered and broken. I always believed love was a safe place, like here.” She traces the tattoos on my chest. “But did you know love could be twisted and painful? I know it’s really stupid, but I never realised it could hurt, not without betrayal.”
    I can’t figure out where she’s going with this so I let her continue, but my chest gets tighter with each word.
    “I’m worried because I love us. This.” She peers up at me through her lashes. “But I’m frightened by what I feel for you. It’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before, and it could crush me if I let it.” She moves her hand down to rub circles on the forearm wrapped around her waist, her gaze follows it.
    Without exact words she just told me she loves me and I want desperately to tell her something she wants to hear, but I can’t.
    “I don’t know what to say, angel. I could beg you to let me in, to trust me, and I could promise that I’ll never be that man, that I’ll never hurt you. But—” I shift so I can look into her eyes. “It’s probably likely. I’ve never done anything like this. Never wanted to.”
    I keep to myself the reasons why and continue. “You distorted my world, made me view things a little differently. You made we want things I’ve never thought about before. Made me think about a future. But I can’t promise you I won’t mess up, and I can’t promise you a happy ending.”
    The warning needs to be out there, no matter what feelings swirl around in me. I’m not relationship material and if we continue down the path we’ve taken she may get hurt, fuck, she will get hurt.
    She turns in my arms and sleepily nods into my chest. “This makes me happy.”
    Those few little words make me fucking ecstatic. Instead of telling her, I pull her a little tighter against me.
    Her fingers work over my abs and down over my tattooed brand. “Why Underdog ?”
    My insides clench and I hope she can’t hear the missed heartbeat. She’s never questioned it before. “Because I’ve always been one.”
    Her face moves against my chest as she snuggles in further. “I doubt that.”
    “Shh, angel. Go to sleep.”
    I place a kiss on her forehead and breathe in her scent as she drifts off. Her breaths even out as I stare down at her beautiful face. My chest swells with a foreign emotion watching her engulfed in my arms. This thing between us has grown, turned into something I never expected, wanted, or dared believe I could have. But she doesn’t know the whole me. And that small fact holds me back.

    I wake early and throw my legs over the edge of the bed. The movement produces a soft noise from Lizzie. My morning glory sits heavy between my legs. I’m not sure