Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Silently, he slipped across the house and down the hall to the room.
He didn’t slow or hesitate.
The bastard was exactly where he knew he would be.
Asleep.
Deep, rattled snores lifted from the right side of the bed.
Unseen, he coasted to the side of it, a shadow that loomed high, and he released a low, vengeful growl.
The piece of shit startled, the whites of his eyes blowing wide in the murky pitch of the room.
But the monster had no time.
No defense.
Not when he’d earned this punishment.
There was only the satisfying flash of recognition in his expression before River’s hand clamped over his mouth, and he tipped his head back right before he dragged the blade across his throat.
Then he was gone.
Without a sound.
Without a trace.
TWENTY-FOUR
CHARLEIGH
River
You thinking about runnin’?
I bit my lip to ward off the rush of eager anticipation that gushed through me when I opened my phone to find the waiting text from him.
It’d been three days since things had gotten heavy between us. Three days since I’d cut myself open and allowed him to see a piece of me that I’d thought would be forever unexposed.
Three days since I’d given a view of the most broken, fractured pieces of me then had turned around and offered him the hope he’d sparked inside me.
The need.
This…this…expectancy that had bloomed and filled my aching chest with something new.
I had the sneaking suspicion that what I was feeling was joy, but it’d been so long since I’d experienced it that I couldn’t be sure.
During the last few days, he’d gone back to playful, and God, I loved it. Loved when I woke up or took my lunch break or powered up my phone after work that there was always some message waiting for me.
Constant reminders that he was there. That maybe…maybe I didn’t have to be alone anymore after all.
Grinning as I pushed through the front door of the medical office, I tapped out a reply.
Me
Not today, Guardian Angel.
I could almost feel his scoff ripple through the distance.
The first time I’d called him that, he’d warned me that he was no angel, but I couldn’t help but tease him about it, anyway.
Even though I meant it. There was something about him that made me feel protected. Watched over.
I blinked rapidly as I stepped out into the bright rays of the late afternoon sun. It’d be hot if it wasn’t for the breeze that whispered through the woods that surrounded the town.
Easiness billowed, and I felt it.
The fact that this place was becoming a sanctuary.
A refuge.
I wouldn’t try to deny that it didn’t have everything to do with the people I’d met here.
Raven and Nolan gliding into the vacancy. Assuaging it with their care and their laughter and their friendship. It was a rare day that Raven wasn’t standing at the door of Moonflower after I got off work, waiting to drag me inside so she could flick the lock and pull me into the back so we could share a bottle of wine.
We’d giggle and chat and goof around, though we both seemed to skate over the more substantial topics. Each tiptoeing, seen and understood without actual confessions to support it.
But River? River was an entirely different story.
He was a riot to my senses and a whisper to my soul.
There was no doubting it when another text blipped through as I walked across the parking lot.
River
Good girl. You wouldn’t want me to have to hunt you down.
Giddiness rushed, bounding through my system, and there was nothing I could do to curb the affected smile that tugged at the edge of my mouth.
Me
Stalker, much?
River
You have no idea.
My stomach twisted in a bout of greed and a fluttering of anticipation.
I could still feel him against my lips. Could feel the tingles that remained even though it’d been close to two weeks since he’d kissed me the second time inside my apartment.
My stomach fisted in that throbby, achy sensation that felt oh so sweet but wasn’t even in the range of being enough. This want that burned.
But it was my heart that squeezed in fierce affection that warned that I was veering into the treacherous.
I knew I was only setting myself up to get destroyed again. Getting attached to a man who’d made it clear that this was only temporary. But there was no stopping the way I felt pulled in his direction.
The man a magnet.
Gravity.
I was still staring at my phone when I hit the sidewalk that ran along 9th Street. My attention was tipped down at my phone, though I made sure to watch where I was going in my periphery, my fingers loose as I played along.
Me
Oh, but I have plenty of ideas.
River
That so?
I could almost see the arch of his menacing brow, the way the stars tattooed on his hairline would dance as he did, everything about him so cruelly beautiful, though those stormy eyes would be softened with the tease.