Read Online Inked Ever After by Elle Aycart - Free Book Online Page B

you couldn’t
breathe properly. You aren’t just ‘a bit emotional’; you’re a fucking wreck.
I’ve been asking if you’re all right for a while, hoping you’d say no and then
come to me and let me help. Instead of that, you’ve been answering that of
course you’re all right. Of course my ass.”
    It looked like she wasn’t so sneaky after all. She needed to
retreat, but he had her trapped on the sofa. She lowered her gaze.
    “You don’t need to see me crying.”
    “You’re so wrong. I’m the only one who needs to see you cry.
Look at me, baby. Don’t hide. Never hide from me. You need to trust me.”
    That stung. “I trust you. I really do. It has nothing to do
with that.” He was going to protest, but she stopped him. “You don’t
understand.”
    “Help me understand. Talk to me.”
    Ha. Like she didn’t have enough trouble expressing her
feelings under normal circumstances. She flinched, and his face tightened.
James was getting pissed.
    “Or am I to believe you don’t want to marry me? Is that it?
Is that why you’re so unhappy? Why you’ve been lying to me? The reason for this
fucking charade you have going on? Pretending everything is okay while you’re
falling apart at the seams?”
    “No,” she cried out, tears again filling her eyes. No, no.
That was exactly what she’d feared the most. Him getting the wrong idea. “I
love you.”
    “So you keep saying.”
    “I want to marry you more than anything in the world. That’s
not it. Not it at all, James. You have to believe me.”
    “What’s the problem then?”
    She tried to speak around the baseball obstructing her
throat. “I didn’t want you to…didn’t want you to…”
    “Didn’t want me to what? Talk to me, dammit!” he roared.
    The words exploded out of her. “I didn’t want you to regret
meeting me!” Then, with a thin streak of voice, added, “Didn’t want to push my
luck any further.”
    That seemed to throw him off. He stared at her. “Regret
meeting you? What the hell are you talking about?”
    Tate fought to make sense. “James, I was drowning when you
found me. Then you came, and you tore through all my walls like they were made
of butter. You saved me, never asking anything in return, and I gave you
nothing but grief and headaches. You gave and gave, and I just took.” She
looked down, ashamed. “I’m still taking. I didn’t want to give you any more
grief. I didn’t want to bother you anymore. Or worry you.”
    His face got scary, his breath coming in harsh rasps. “How
many times do we have to go over this for you to get it into your thick skull?
I love you. Taking care of you is not a bother, princess. It’s my prerogative.
I want you, forever. All of you. Yes, sometimes you make me spitting mad, and
yes, you’ve given me headaches, and you’ll probably give me many more, but I’ll
take all of them gladly for a chance to wake up to you every morning for the
rest of my life. There is nothing about you I’d change. And as sure as fuck I
don’t regret you. I’m crazy in love with you, Tate. How can you even consider
for a second that I could regret meeting you?”
    “How couldn’t you?” She was a friggin’ emotional black hole,
which, taking into consideration what she’d called him when they first met, was
damn ironic. “You deserve better than me.”
    James stilled, the air around them going ice-cold. “What did
you just say?”
    “You deserve the very best,” she said. “I’m not the very
best, James. Not by a long shot. You deserve better than me.”
    There it was, in black and white.
    One moment he was squeezing her into the sofa, the next he
was standing with his back to her in the middle of the living room, his hands
in his hair. The bulging muscles on his arms rippled in barely restrained
tension as he gripped his nape.
    Her words had stunned him into silence. She hadn’t meant to
come out and say it, but now that it was out there, she wasn’t going to take it
back. For