Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 189782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 759(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 189782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 759(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
“I love you.” I hold her palm against my cheek.
“I know.” Her eyes dart between mine, and her breathing goes shallow. “I…”
“Don’t say it.” I let her slide her hand away. “Not until you’re ready.”
“I won’t.”
She’s a tough one to crack. The past year of hell has made her nearly impregnable. If I win her back, a life with her won’t be easy. Not with the trauma she carries. She has always talked back and stood up for herself. She’s always been hardheaded and independent. Now she’s all those things with anxiety and PTSD. After the shit she went through, she’s learning how to love herself again and requires more patience and effort than she did before.
I love her enough for both of us.
She pushes up to a sitting position, folding her legs beneath her.
“I had a dream.” She stares at her hands, then at me. “I dreamed they were still alive. Doyle, Sirena, Denver…” Her voice cracks. “Wolf.”
“Denver can’t live without his heart.”
“He never had a heart.” She releases a shaky breath. “I watched him die and felt his life leave his body. No coming back from that. But the others…what if Doyle and Sirena are being held somewhere? Tortured? Getting hands and eyes removed while they’re still alive?”
Another result of her trauma…She overthinks everything and believes the worst-case scenario.
I want to lie to her and tell her it’s not as bad as she thinks. But she needs me to be completely honest and straightforward with her at all times. She’s not a fragile flower, and I won’t treat her like one.
“Yeah.” Resolve hardens in my chest. “It’s possible, but we’re doing everything we can to find them.”
“I’m worried about Leo and Kody.”
“Their bodyguards are with them.” I point to my phone on the coffee table. “I’ll be notified immediately if anything happens.”
“Where are they now?”
I grab the phone and check the GPS tracker. “They both just returned to the distillery.”
She nods. “Tell me about Kodiak Island. What was it like growing up in a crime family?”
With a sigh, I settle into the couch and tell her all the things I kept from her before she was taken. The stories about my father’s assassins lurking around the estate, the closed-door meetings, and hushed phone calls. Then I tell her about Kody’s mother and all our adventures on the island, such as fishing in the bay, making ridiculous dance videos, and exploring the caves.
As I walk through my memories, she listens raptly and shares her own childhood stories.
It’s late when she finally announces, “I’m going to bed.”
I grab our phones and follow her upstairs.
“What favor will The Ghost demand of you?” She pauses in the doorway of the guest bedroom. “Coach his son’s little league team? Babysit his pet tiger? Maybe send him some feet pics?”
“Maybe.” A smirk hitches the corner of my mouth as I set our phones in the room. “It will likely be along the lines of laundering large sums of money, providing a temporary safe haven, or marrying the virgin daughter of an enemy Russian mobster.”
“What?” She chokes. “You’re already married.”
“I am.” I step into her. “Say it again.”
“You’re married.” She swallows, eyes fixed on mine.
“That’s right, and my wife is ferocious. Strong. Gorgeous. Fearsome. She would never share me with another.” I dust the backs of my fingers across her snowy white cheek. “I can’t take my eyes off her. Every soft curve, every little dip and arch. I want to eat her.”
I draw closer, backing her against the doorframe and gripping the jamb above her head. Then I trail my fingers down her breastbone oh-so softly.
“Monty.” She shrinks back, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Those sharp little fangs nibbling on your lip…the sight makes me rock hard.” Resting my thumb against her mouth, I tug the plump flesh free. “I’m so fucking hard for you.”
A small sound escapes her throat, part whimper, part gasp.
“Put your hands on me.” I bend in, dragging my nose through her hair. “Feel what you do to me.”
A second passes. Then she lowers her gaze—we both do—to the jutting, swollen erection in my gray sweatpants.
The thin material doesn’t confine or restrain my ravenous hunger. Instead, it reveals every stiff inch, every angry ridge, every twitch. My goddamn cock isn’t idle. It throbs and drools and jumps like a rabid animal under her scrutiny.
Touch me. Put me out of my fucking misery.
Her chest rises and falls as she shifts her hand. Not to wrangle my dick. No, she hooks a finger under the hem of my T-shirt, gathers it, and tugs it upward.
I reach behind my shoulders, yank the garment over my head, and drop it.
“Damn.” She swallows a breathy inhale. “You’ve always had the body of a thirty-year-old athlete. I miss looking at you. Touching you.”
My lungs seize. My heart strokes out. I grip the doorframe above her head, angling closer, lower, until we’re at eye level.