Page 178 of Wreck Me

I wanted to revel in it, in every moment of finding somebody like her, with everything she was and everything she brought to our lives… the passion, the peace and the balance, all of it.

“Well, things have been crazy lately, right?”

“Bastian,” she protested, knowing it was more than that.

I sighed and kept my gaze fixed on the road ahead as I forced the words past my lips, and actually opened up to tell her, “I was struggling for a bit, yeah. Letting everything back in, feeling again… it was challenging. But I’ve got a handle on it now.”

I was good now.

And I hadn’t touched those pills since that day when we’d revealed The Jackals to her.

All right, fine. Once. One other time. Right after the convention.

But that had just been because I’d had to spend time with my mom, her latest boy toy, and be in the same vicinity as Damien while pretending for public perception—and her bullshit—that there was no bad blood between us, that nothing fucked-up had happened.

I’d needed them to calm down.

That was all.

“Yeah?” she asked, reaching up and stroking my hair. “You’re sure?”

“I am, beautiful.” Especially when she was right here beside me. And stroking me. I liked the soft and sweet with her as much as the hard and rough. Any way she touched me affected me like I hadn’t thought possible. But so did just being with her when that wasn’t a factor. Immersing myself in her. The understanding and gentle parts of her as much as the fierce and vicious. It didn’t matter which part I got, which was prevalent at any given time, because it all connected to the beauty of her as a whole.

She smiled at me and eased her hand away with a contented smile.

Good. She was dropping it, my words having satisfied her that all was actually well.

Relief sung through me.

I didn’t want her knowing that aspect of me.

The troubled part.

The broken.

The weak and struggling.

The guy who could barely hold his head above water.

As far as I was concerned, it was all long in the past.

Sure, I’d had a couple of slipups lately, but they’d just been brief, mild hiccups along the way, nothing more than that.

While I got that I’d need to let her in on that eventually, especially with us building this relationship between us, it wasn’t yet time. It had taken a fuck of a lot to get her to let me in at all, and I didn’t want to mar it with any bullshit, especially something that had no bearing on the here and now.

Besides, as she’d even admitted moments ago, being in our world was a lot to take. And she’d already endured some of that as it was. She was still acclimating, no need to pile it all on at once.

The universe didn’t seem to get that fucking message, though, as I found out in the next moment when my phone started ringing via the handsfree setup on the dash.

Doctor Granger.

I grimaced at the sight of the call display. Seriously?

Not again.

This was the third time in two days she’d tried to contact me.

As I looked away and focused on the road ahead, and not missing the turn I needed to make down a specific side street, I felt Sky’s eyes on me.

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