Page 120 of Stay for Me

My eyes met his. “Food noise.”

Slowly, his brows furrowed. “Food noise,” he parroted, confusion lacing the jagged edges of his voice.

I nodded. “That’s what the kids call it these days.” I paused, scared to admit the truth to not only him, but to myself. “I suffered from an eating disorder from the time I was a sophomore in high school to when I graduated law school.”

Something passed over his face then, dark and chilling, down to the bone.

When he didn’t say anything, his eyes compelled me to tell him more. “I think about food all the time, calories always in the back of my mind, what I need to do to burn them,” I rambled. “I haven’t done it in a really long time, but I used to binge eat, feel immense guilt over all the food I consumed, and then…I would—um—force myself to throw it back up.”

He was still silent, a shadow over his rugged features. My heart thundered in my ears, the beat of my pulse amplifying my anxious thoughts.

“I don’t…I don’t do it anymore,” I finally pushed out, my voice cracking at the end. “I haven’t in a long, long time, and when you mentioned me losing weight, I didn’t lose it by doing that.”

“How did you?” he prompted gruffly.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Calorie deficit.”

“And at the rate you lost all that weight, baby, I can only assume it wasn’t a healthy deficit.”

Now it was my turn to say nothing. He looked down at our bodies. “You’re soft, Diana, in all the right places. If anyone makes you feel like that’s a problem, you call me. I’ll take care of ‘em.”

Panic slithered between us, around my neck, down my spine. “You can’t kill someone because they think I’m fat,” I argued.

“Sure, I can.”

“Mags!”

“Diana,” he returned, his thumb going to my lip. “Been my woman for over a fuckin’ decade. I don’t tolerate that shit.”

I blinked. “We just got together this morning,” I reminded him. His hips flexed against me, the ball at the tip of his cock pressing into my thigh.

“You’ve been the only woman on my mind, which means, to me, you are, and have been my woman,” he stated.

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

“You need to establish a healthy relationship with food.” My cowboy’s voice was soft, gentle, everything I needed it to be for this conversation.

“I’m working on it.”

“A healthy relationship with food includes not writing down which days you’re allowed to have a fuckin’ cookie in your planner,” he deadpanned.

“I—how did you—I don’t—”

His nose was against mine then as he growled, “Dropped that damn thing on Denver’s porch three years ago. It popped open, and when I handed it back to you, I saw it. Wednesday. Six PM. Two Oreos. Written in damn lime green ink.”

“I—”

He cut me off again, sharp but gentle. “That shit stops now.”

“But—”

His eyes scanned over my face, brow furrowed. “You want a fuckin’ Oreo, eat a fuckin’ Oreo.”

“The problem isn’t eating one Oreo, Mags. The problem is, I want a whole row of them. I have no self-control,” I admitted, heat climbing up my cheeks.

“Then eat a whole row, Diana. Just don’t do it every fuckin’ week.”

I shook my head, frustrated tears burning in my eyes. He pulled back slightly, his fingers weaving through my hair, his arms on either side of my head now. “Tell me why you’re crying,” he commanded softly.

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