Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Ajax was sitting on one of the little wooden benches that decorated the hospital grounds several feet away, his arms stretched over the back, his massive frame dominating the small furniture. I swallowed hard, unable to stop the reaction my body had to seeing him.
One look, and I could almost feel his lips against mine, felt the tingle there as if he’d just kissed me. One glance, and I ached for him to hold me, to speak in that deep tenor of his and make the real world fall away.
The real world.
But he wasn’t part of the real world, was he? He showed up when I needed him most, as most common coping mechanisms would. I’d met him outside this very hospital, for fuck’s sake. So why did my fingers tremble when his eyes locked on mine?
“Hi,” I said, because honestly it felt rude to just stand there staring at him.
He grinned at me, and I took a step toward the bench, but he…
Disappeared.
The breath turned icy in my lungs.
I clenched my eyes shut, panic making my heart race. There was my proof, Ajax was just in my head—
“Grace,” he said my name aloud right behind me.
I whirled around, looking up at him. “How did…what just happened?”
I don’t want anything between us anymore.
His voice sounded in my head, but his lips absolutely didn’t move. Something like apology churned in his gaze as he looked down at me, his hand extended between us. “Do you trust me?”
I eyed him, then his hand and back again.
Did I trust him?
Of course, I did. Why else would I have instantly folded him into what little life I had left? Plus, if I made him in my mind, I suppose there was no one better to trust than myself.
“You had your tongue between my thighs last week,” I said, biting back a laugh. “And I’m pretty sure I drank your blood, so…yeah.” I slid my hand into his.
He breathed out slowly, almost as if he’d been holding his breath waiting for my answer. “Good,” he said, then tugged me closer before he scooped me into his arms.
I yelped in surprise, my arms automatically flying around his neck as he cradled me to his chest.
“What are you doing?” I asked, not at all certain he wasn’t about to sprout black feathered wings and whisk me into the sky like the Grim Reaper I always teased him about being.
“I want to show you something.”
“Okay,” I said, unable to take my eyes off him. From the position he held me in, I was dangerously close to his mouth, those full lips beyond tempting as he held my gaze. His arms held me effortlessly, the muscles in his chest and abs grazing the side of my body that was pressed against him.
A slow, almost wild grin shaped his lips. “You have to look around in order to see,” he explained.
“Oh,” I said, blinking as I managed to tear my eyes off his. I glanced around us, my eyes widening as I gripped him just a little bit harder. “What the hell?”
Other people walking in or out of the hospital had just…frozen. Like mid-walk, mid-opening the door, mid-playing with their keys, stopped.
My heart rate kicked up, my body rebelling at what my eyes were seeing. “Ajax…” I clenched my eyes shut. Fuck, was this it? Was I about to die? Is this what happened when you died, the world around you stopped?
“I’ve got you,” Ajax said, walking us across the grounds. “You’re not hallucinating and you’re not dying.”
His words did little to comfort me as we walked past all the people frozen in their movements, but I managed to breathe deeply. Ajax stopped outside his Range Rover, opening the passenger door before settling me inside. I was too stunned to even argue that I was fully capable of getting into his car myself.
Ajax climbed behind the wheel, the silence in the car near stifling.
“Keep watching,” Ajax said before he snapped his fingers.
Everyone that had been frozen returned to their previous actions as if there had been no break in them at all.
My lips parted open, shock fluttering through me as I turned to look at Ajax.
“You did that?”
He nodded.
“You can control time?”
Another nod, and a flash of worry in his eyes. “Are you scared?”
I shook my head, excitement and wonder filling me to the edges of my soul. I’d just given my manifestation super powers. And seriously, controlling time? What could be better, when I was so quickly running out of it?
I smiled at him. “Not at all,” I said, leaning back in the seat.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Seriously,” I answered. “I could tell you that when you know you’re going to die soon, nothing is terrifying, but that would be a lie.” I sighed. “It’s you, Ajax,” I admitted, putting a little of my heart out there for him to destroy if he wanted to. “You’ve become the one safe space my life has. You're the person I think of when I wonder what would be worth living for, worth risking the pain of treatment for. You could never scare me. Never.”