Page 122 of Burned & Bound

“You’re too goddamn good, you know that?” he whispered.

“I think you’re the first fucking person on the planet to believe that,” I scoffed.

“But I’m right,” he said. “And I love you all the more for it.”

My throat clogged up with a wild wave of emotion. I merely nodded and kissed him again because fucking words.

CHAPTER 85

jackson

As expected, West wastoo wound up to sleep. It took some coaxing and reassurance, but eventually, the two of us lay in bed just talking in the dark. No more than five minutes into the conversation, West’s fingers found their way to my pulse.

“Why the fuck are you asking my favorite color?” he demanded.

“I told you I’d come up with a list of talking points,” I reminded him, grinning, even if he couldn’t see me.

“What do you think is my favorite color?” West countered.

“Black ain’t a color, baby,” I said.

“It’s a fucking color!”

“It’s the absence of light.”

“That’s bullshit,” he scoffed. I could damn near hear the eye roll in his voice. It only made me chuckle.

“That’s Google science,” I replied.

“Do you believe everything you read on Google?” He scooted closer, and his knees bumped into mine. I waited for him to pull away, but he didn’t. The closer proximity made me happy. I’d never push it with him, but Icouldn’t deny that I enjoyed whatever physical contact I could get with West.

“You’d believe everything on Google if you had a fucking smartphone.”Yeah, I poked at the bear with that one.

“I don’t need a fucking computer in my pocket.”

“You have a flip phone!” Him and his damn flip phone. “It’s ancient. There’s one in a goddamn museum somewhere. You need an upgrade.”

“It works just fine. Next question, cowboy. You’re not buying me a phone,” West said. I was going to replace that fucking fossil of a phone. How I planned to do that was just the question.

“Tell me about your tattoos,” I said instead.

“I have them.”

“Fucker.”I both loved and hated his smart-ass answers.“Why the angel wings?”

“Next question,” he snapped.

“West.” I frowned, wondering what the hell his resistance to the question was about. I wouldn’t push it, but I wanted to know.

“When my mom died, she said she’d send an angel to protect me. Obviously, that didn’t fucking work,” he began with a sigh. “So, I got drunk and decided it’d be a great fucking idea to have my own wings. I’d protect myself since no one else was going to fucking do it.”

My fucking heart.

“You shouldn’t have been allowed to get a tattoo drunk.” I decided to focus on the thing that wouldn’t push his buttons—which also happened to be a safety fact. While I didn’t have a tattoo, I’d gotten drunk once and tried. They turned my ass away real fast. Something about my inability to give legal consent or some bullshit.

“A guy I knew did tattoos for anyone under any circumstances as long as he got paid.”Well, that sounded shady as fuck.“He did most of it while I was passed out drunk.”

“That sounds unpleasant.” It bothered me more than I wanted to admit that someone had done that to him.How fucking unprofessional.“Did you get rid of your first tattoos?”

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