Page 35 of The Bratva's Knocked-Up Bride

Sky averted her gaze at the slight call-out, taking a moment to gather her thoughts before she sighed. “You know why…”

“I’m not sure I do,” I insisted, brows furrowing slightly despite how I tempered my impatience as best as I could. “I need to hear it from you directly.”

Looking slightly irritated about me asking it of her, she looked at me more pointedly. “I already told you before…you’ve been overstepping. Inserting yourself where you shouldn’t be. First, it was with the hovering, and more recently, it’s happening with you trailing me while I work on my assignment. It’s too much…too suffocating.”

“Suffocating?”

Not tearing her eyes away, she nodded. “Yes. What’s worse is you won’t even tell me what caused all of this. Why you’ve been watching me so closely.”

Aware that she was right to be annoyed by it all, I sighed and looked off at nothing in particular for a moment.

I hated how she had the power to make me second-guess myself, and I hated even more how regardless of that fact, I still didn’t want to be without her.

“I know I’ve been vague about it all, and I can guess how off-putting all of it must seem, but I need you to trust me when I say I’ve been trying to protect you for a reason.”

While I hoped those words would help subdue her, they only seemed to do the opposite.

Instead of taking my word for it, her brows pinched together as she looked at me with those eyes riddled with frustration. “How is that supposed to make me feel even better about it?”

I was fumbling it. I was ruining my chances of making things more tolerable between us, and I knew I was losing her in the process.

But I couldn’t let that happen.

“I can’t tell you the deeper reason just yet, but I’ll tell you this much…” I began, mustering up my conviction again as I took a small step closer and silently appreciated her gorgeous features. Not leaving any room for doubt, I gave her a look of pure sincerity. “I’ve been watching you, following you, and hoping for the slightest chance at any given moment to run into you because I can’t get enough of you. Dangers aside, I want to be near you…to get to know you and understand you. It probably sounds insane, but I’m completely infatuated with you.”

For a moment, my mind took a moment to catch up, and I couldn’t help but wonder what I had even said and if it was too much. But either way, the slight ramble came from an honest place, and I could only hope that was enough.

And yet, Sky blinked back at me as if trying to process it at the same time I was.

That startled widening of her eyes gave me a sense of hope and dread all the while I was banking on her having a positive reaction to my confession.

It was terrifying to be baring my complete feelings for her like that, in a bar of all places, but I wasn’t about to let that unsettling air linger between us any longer than it needed to.

“I’m sorry for dumping all of this on you right here and now, but I needed you to know, and I didn’t want any of this to be misconstrued,” I continued, unable to stop myself while she visibly struggled to wrap her head around it. “I didn’t have sex with you just for the sake of it. It was more than a spur-of-the-moment thing, and I know I’m selfish for thinking this, but I justwant you for myself, Sky. I want to have and keep you, and see where this might go between us.”

She seemed to silently gawk at me, in complete disbelief at everything I was unloading on her. It was clear that she didn’t know where to start, and I felt at least a bit guilty for putting her in that position in the first place.

“…infatuated?”

Her voice was so quiet I almost missed it, but I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes…infatuated. You’re all I’ve been able to think about ever since I started my surveillance at the office. You’ve been consuming my mind without even realizing it, and it’s been…distracting, to say the least. I don’t think you know how badly I’ve been wanting you, especially after that night in the office.”

Once again, Sky looked completely stunned, and for a moment, I had half the mind to assume she was prepared to bolt.

But she stood there, just as confused and shocked.

I couldn’t miss how rattled she looked by the revelation, and as much as I wanted to think she was stunned by her happiness at the confession, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or feeling.

More than anything, I wanted her to express her mutual interest and desires…I wanted her to tell me that she couldn’t stand the thought of being without me either. I wanted it to go my way and to ease the doubts I had swirling inside me.

I wanted to know that she was as invested in me as intensely as I was in her, but I also knew I was pushing it again. I was crossing a line that I should’ve steered far away from for both of our sake.

But at the same time, I couldn’t deny it any longer. I wanted her—needed her, and I knew that wouldn’t change any time soon.

Somehow, she managed to wedge her way into my head and my heart without even trying to, and I didn’t have the means to stop it. It was a hopeless fight from the beginning, and now, I was done resisting it.

I wanted Sky, and even if she didn’t want me in return, at least I could rest easy knowing I didn’t keep that fact to myself.

Chapter 16 - Sky

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