In Too Deep by Michelle Kemper Brownlow Read Free Book Online Page B

leave.”
    “I’m not leaving until you just let me talk to you.”
    “You talked plenty last night. Hmmm. Let’s see, you talked about Ivy… and Steph… and Madison. Are there more sluts you need to share with me? Because, if that’s the case, I’m not interested in knowing any more. You do what you want from now on, but I swear to you it won’t be with me.”
    “Gracie, sit down.”
    “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do, Noah. You have no right.” I wanted to fight. I wanted to reach in and pull his heart out through his face. There was no way he was going to soften any part of my heart with anything he had to say.
    “You are right. You shouldn’t want to talk about it. You should insist I leave. But, Gracie, I know your heart. I know it is searching for a reason why I did what I did. I know you are trying to figure out what would have kept it from happening. You’re thinking it had something to do with you. And Gracie, I don’t ever want you to feel how I know you’re feeling right now.”
    “Oh, now you read minds. So, tell me Noah, what else am I feeling?” He was right. I couldn’t get rid of the nagging voice in my head that kept saying, You were never enough for him, certain things about you just came up short. Maybe if you were a little sexier or more adventurous in bed he wouldn’t have strayed. But good girls don’t make good lovers, so he moved on when he saw something better.
    “You’re telling yourself that I needed more, that you weren’t pretty enough or skinny enough. You’re deciding that these mistakes I made are because I needed more than you could give me. Gracie, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I can’t leave this apartment until you hear me out. It would kill me to think you believed any of those things you’re telling yourself.”
    I sat on the edge of my bed and he knelt before me. He wasn’t pacing like he was last night. He was steady. He was serious.
    “Gracie Jordan, the night I met you I knew I never wanted to go a day without seeing you. There is a quiet sexiness in you that drives me insane. It’s nothing I have ever felt for anyone, ever. When you touch me, electricity shoots through my veins. When we make love… Well, there are no words to begin to describe how much I crave that connection with you.
    “These other girls. They meant nothing. They were like a ‘fall off the wagon’ kind of thing. I quit my other lifestyle cold turkey the night I walked into Murphy’s and saw you standing in the middle of the kitchen floor holding a pizza. Before you, Gracie, I was out every night messing with girls, seeing how many I could lead on, fist-fighting their boyfriends when I went too far and pissed them off. You’ve heard the stories. But that all changed because you stole my heart and it hit me broadside.”
    “Noah. That’s how you used to feel.”
    “No, Gracie, that’s how I still feel.”
    “Shut up. I’m not an idiot. You don’t get naked with other girls if you love your girlfriend the way you just described.”
    “I need you to see this in a different way.”
    “There’s only one way to see it. You cheated. We are done.”
    “A recovering alcoholic walks into a bar—”
    “Now we’re telling jokes? Unbelievable.”
    “Let me start again. There’s this man who drinks way too much and to everyone else that’s all he is, a drunk. So, he doesn’t have much to live up to. But one day, he sees the opportunity for a career. A great career. So, he decides he’s going to quit and he does it on his own. Just wakes up and decides he’s never touching a drink again. That was me, the day I met you. But it wasn’t drinking that was my problem. I wanted to be with you so badly, I knew I had to give up the raunchy life I was living before you would even give me the time of day.
    “So, this guy, he does so well. He stays away from bars and cleans up every part of his life. He is happy. Really, really happy because he got the job of his