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 opened and closed his mouth a few times, the words clearly getting tangled as emotions wreaked havoc across his face.
“You don’t have to reciprocate, Grim,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. “I just wanted you to know.” I couldn’t keep things to myself, not when time was running out with each ticking second of the clock.
A grin stretched across my face. “Controlling time,” I said, almost to myself. “That is so freaking awesome. Do you ever stop time just to have some peace and quiet?” I knew I definitely would, especially when I was reading in public. Why was it that anytime you had a paperback out in public, people felt the need to start talking to you?
“Yes,” he said, starting the car.
“So, where are you taking me?”
“Where do you want to go?” he asked, starting the car.
Memories flooded me from the last time he was at my house—his mouth on my skin, his tongue against my oversensitive flesh, his body pressed against mine. The way his teeth had sunk into me…
I wanted that freedom again, that total loss of reality. I wanted to be devoured by him and consume him in return. I wanted…
I wanted him. Now, then, always.
“My place,” I answered.
“I show you what I can do, and you don’t immediately ask me to take you to a public place so you can get away safely?” he asked, half-tease half-truth.
I shook my head. “The only thing that is getting me away from you is death,” I answered, then cringed at my lack of filter.
But Ajax smiled at me, shaking his head before he grumbled something under his breath that I couldn’t make out.
And as he pulled us onto the highway, I couldn’t help but think that as horrific as my situation was, this tumor certainly was making my last days extraordinary.
9
AJAX
I’d lived centuries upon centuries, met thousands upon thousands of people—both human and vampire, and yet Grace was the first being to confound me at every possible turn.
I took the turn toward her house as she stuck her hand out the window, playing with a stream of air as we cut through the night, a content smile on her face. And that smile…it gave me that same content feeling, radiating peace through my chest even when my hunger threatened imminent violence.
Five days. That was all I’d managed to stay away. Five fucking days. And each one of them had felt like I was being torn apart, like the physical distance from Grace was stretching pieces of me to their limit.
Tonight, when Zachariah had shot me a knowing look I wasn’t ready to interpret, then “given me the night off,” again, I’d taken it without a second thought. I’d been distracted as fuck the last five days—moody, achy, and the worst of it was the hunger. Endless. Gnawing. Hunger.
I’d tracked her through the blood we’d shared, hoping that maybe showing her my powers would finally trigger a healthy dose of fear in her. That she’d finally see me for what I am—a danger to her. But instead, she’d reveled in it, accepting me just as I was without question, and I’d lost all desire to scare her off for her own good in my desperation for just a little more time with her.
I was such an asshole. She was dying. Her blood only tasted faintly of the illness I knew was consuming her, but that was no excuse to lose control the other night. I never should have taken from her, let alone drank so much she’d needed to drink my blood to replace what I’d greedily consumed..
And yet I wanted more. I wanted her under me, her thighs spread, her pussy wet, her blood flowing into my mouth as I fucked her to completion so many times that it would only ever be my name she called out when she came.
My blood heated and my body drew tight just thinking about it.
Bite, my instincts demanded like the insistent assholes they were.
Shut the fuck up. I concentrated on Grace’s scent, hoping it would ground me from the predatory needs prowling through me as we pulled into her driveway, but that was the wrong move. Hunger flared anew as the sweetness of her filled my lungs. Staying away had been my only defense against the addiction I recognized brewing in my blood, and yet here I was.
Yep. Asshole incarnate.
I put the car in park.
“You’re coming in, right?” Grace asked, turning toward me.
I gripped the steering wheel. “I can think of about a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t.” A thousand reasons that all began and ended with the fact that she wasn’t completely safe with me, not with the way I’d lost it with her. I wanted her too badly to trust my own control.
“And I can think of just as many reasons as to why you should.”