Page 40 of Shifting Gears

“I’m surprised. For such a strong, fearless man, you rushed away from your problems instead of facing them head-on,” she said, a smile on her face as she looked down.

“I didn’t run from anything,” I snapped.

She started laughing. Now I was getting pissed off. She had wanted me to be real with her, so I was, and now she’s fucking laughing at me?

“But you did. You ran from your fears,” she said as she pushed her hair over one shoulder and looked back at me.

I said nothing because if I opened my mouth, I was most likely not going to say anything nice.

She sighed, picking up on my irritation. “I mean to say, you ran from being with the woman you loved because you were afraid of something like that happening again. As someone who is engaged to a man I hate because I want to keep my family safe, I can relate to those feelings. I didn’t mean to laugh at you andfor you to misunderstand. I found irony in something we both share. Some days, it’s easier to take the road that we think will cause the people we care about less pain than the pain we will put ourselves through,” she said as she reached her hand up and brushed my hair out of my eyes.

“You have a big heart, AJ. And you feel deeply for the people you love. Even if you don’t see that yet, I do.”

I let her words sink in. No one had ever said anything like this to me—no one except Rosalie.

I’d always had people make assumptions about me. That because of who my mom was, I wouldn’t amount to anything. That because I lived on the streets, I would become a felon or a gang member. Because I liked a good fuck, I was going to become a player or a pimp. Since I was a hothead, I was going to be a fighter. After everyone kept telling me who I would be, I got tired of trying to prove them wrong. It was just easier to prove them right.

So, I lived my life day by day, doing only things that gave me an adrenaline high, a sexual high, or I literally got high.

Rosalie was the first person who looked beyond the outside and fell in love with who I was on the inside. She was the first person who made me question why I did certain things. And the first person who made me change the way I thought and the way I lived my life.

Because, at the end of the day, she believed in me in ways no one else ever had. And she made me want to be the best man I could be, so I could be good enough for her.

But I knew, even if I worked my ass off, I’d never be good enough for her in the eyes of her family. Her brother had been a smart-ass to me since the day we’d fucking met. Her dad had literally paid me off to get away from her, and I was pretty sure, at one point, her mother had wanted to kill me. So, even if I’dstuck around, if they had made her pick between me or them, that was a fight I didn’t want to know the outcome of.

“Yeah, well, giving a shit about another person has never ended well for me. It didn’t with my ma; it didn’t with the first girl I was into, who just wanted to fuck me and steal my money and weed when I was asleep; and it didn’t with Rosalie. Hell, giving as much as I am to this situation we’re in will probably fuck me over in the long run too,” I said.

I reached out and grabbed her hair at the back of her neck and tugged her closer to me, our lips centimeters apart.

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you, AJ. If anything, the feelings I’ve started to have for you will hurt me since it won’t be long before I won’t be able to act on them anymore. If I wasn’t about to seal my fate with Kaito … if my life were different, I might even say I was falling in love with you,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and kissed me.

Fuck.

Love wasn’t something I was looking for. It wasn’t something I wanted to give anyone else. But Raven had leaked into my bloodstream, and I did have some feelings for her. I wanted to protect her from the creep she was engaged to, to keep her here in my place so she would be safe.Lovemight be the wrong word, but I was into this woman.

And while I wouldn’t say anything out loud, I would show her that some small part of me did want her.

Our kiss turned into making out, and then I rolled her onto her back, and we fucked until we exhausted ourselves.

I closed my eyes with her wrapped up in my arms. She wasn’t Rosalie, but maybe she could become someone almost as important to me.

I kissed her forehead one last time before I drifted off to sleep.

I wokeup a few hours later to Raven nudging me.

“Hey, Hero, time to wake up. I’ve got to leave, babe.”

Hearing her call me something other than the nickname she had given me drew my attention and made me wake up faster. When I opened my eyes and they adjusted to the low light in the room, my dick began to get hard.

Raven was kneeling next to me, wearing one of my sleeveless hoodies and her panties. It was so big on her that I could see her tits from the gap in the collar next to her neck.

And, damn, was it hot to see her like that.

She caught my stare and followed it, quickly leaning back with a light laugh. “Sorry, I needed to run to the bathroom and grabbed one of the closest things around. Now that you’re awake, I can turn on the overhead light and find my clothes. You know, the ones you tossed everywhere last night,” she said with a smirk.

“I remember. They were in the way. You’re lucky I didn’t rip them off you instead,” I said as I got up and began to get dressed.

I watched as she picked up her clothes and changed until she held out my hoodie to me and I tugged it on. It was warm from her body and even smelled a bit like her—flowery but subtle.

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