Purple Haze (Blue Dream Book 2) by Unknown Page B

as your adorable niece.”
     
    “She is adorable,” he echoes. “Too adorable. I'm gonna have a hard time not spoiling her rotten.”
     
    Hearing the joy for a child in his life doesn't help the lingering lust to be in bed with him rather than here at the table. “No kids of your own then?”
     
    “No,” he instantly answers. “You?”
     
    “No.”
     
    “And you were single,” he starts as our food is delivered. “Merrick mentioned something about an ex.”
     
    Assuming that was when they were moving boxes, I place the napkin in my lap. “Don't you mean are single?”
     
    “No.”
     
    The forceful answer pours gasoline on the fire burning me from the inside out. No matter how many times he claims me over and over again, I don't think it'll be enough. Guilt over this being the least responsible line of decision making I've done in my adult life has me reaching for a fried pickle in haste.
     
    “Pres,” Ryder quietly demands my attention. The moment our eyes lock he states, “I don't plan on losing you ever again. I damn sure have no intention on fucking sharing you with someone else.” He shakes his head slowly. “I won't share you.”
     
    I swallow the bite in my mouth. “Am I sharing you? Because I did that once and...well I don't ever want to do it again.”
     
    Without hesitation he shakes his head again. “You won't. I swear.”
     
    Rational thoughts continue to roll through my brain waking up the pieces paralyzed from pleasure. “You hurt me, Ryder.”
     
    His hand stops from grabbing the piece of food it was headed for.
     
    “Bad.” Bravery nudges me to continue. “I don't even know if I ever healed from what happened between us. After we broke up, I buried those thoughts, emotions, any inkling of the person I was when I was with you. I ended up broken on a completely different level. And no, it wasn't all your fault, I was there too. I didn't have to make those choices. I could have dealt with our separation differently. My point is...”
     
    Ryder's eyebrows lift.
     
    “While I feel the same as you do, while I feel we should be together, or at least try again, I refuse to end up a withering worthless mess this time. I'm stronger now. I deserve better than half of someone. I deserve to know everything . I mean everything, Ryder. No secrets. No lies. If you're expecting some sort of doormat-”
     
    “You were never a doormat,” he whispers. “But I understand what you're saying.”
     
    I shove another bite into my mouth to keep from rambling further.
     
    “You're right. You do deserve better than the piece of shit I turned into. And let me make this clear for you, Pres. I've never truly forgiven myself for how I hurt you. Mentally. Emotionally....phys...” He chokes on the end of the word. Ryder surprises me yet again and says, “Physically. I wanna say that wasn't me, but that would be a lie. It was me. It was who I had become. It's the very person I stayed until a few months ago when I entered rehab for the final time.”
     
    His confession unhinges my jaw.
     
    “I have the spent the last ten years strung out and addicted to anything I could use to numb the pain of living without you. To keep my mind dulled to the backlash of my parents’ divorce and their inability to really care about me. Drugs ruled my existence. They seemed to be the only way to hide from the demon I had become. Losing you was the first as much as it was the final straw. Between the bullshit with my family, the bullshit of adolescence, and the bullshit fear there was nowhere to go but down, I began to drown in a world I never wanna see again.” Ryder's body tenses. He rubs his scruff covered chin. “I've made mistakes. Of the unimaginable kind. I've carried them and the nightmare of every wrong moment between us for a decade. When I was in rehab, a therapist finally got to me. He tore me apart. He forced me to look at myself in pieces, in ways I've been too much of a coward to.”
     
    The