Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
I’m afraid of heights.
I don’t know why, and Kurt tried everything he could to get me past it, but nothing worked. Luke knows this secret about me but I don’t think he’s trying to scare me. This is his outlet—fast cars and motorcycles replaced his jets when he left the military. When he left the daredevil pilot side nicknamed “Lucifer” behind.
My fingers curl on my lap, and I force myself to draw in a breath. The damn song keeps playing.
Guess you forgot what you told me
Because you left my heart on the floor
Luke speeds up yet again. I squeeze my eyes shut, force myself not to look at the road or the steep drop. If we die, we die together. It would be a fitting end to us both, I guess. I’m not sure why it’s fitting. I can’t think straight right now in order to put that into an articulate thought. The song ends and Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” comes on. I sing the lyrics in my head, blocking out everything else. I lose time. I don’t lose my anxiety. Luke finally slows down and I open my eyes but I don’t look at him. Anger burns in my belly, sudden and fierce. Who am I kidding? I shot him. Of course, he was trying to scare me.
We’re on the outskirts of Breckenridge now and I spy a store. “Please stop. I need to go the bathroom,” I say, still not looking at him. I need out of the truck, I think. I need air. I need away from him.
He pulls over and parks at the far end of the store’s lot. I open the door before he’s even killed the engine, and I’m out, welcoming the brisk Colorado air. I fully intend to avoid Luke and get inside before him but that doesn’t happen. As if he’s jet fuel, he’s in front of me, blocking my path. “I can’t get you to feel shit now, can I? Not even fear.”
My anger bubbles over. “You scared the shit out of me, asshole,” I hiss, and try to slap him.
He catches my wrist. “You got away with that once, sweetheart. You don’t get to do it again.”
Sweetheart isn’t so sweet right about now. “I could do it again if I really wanted to, and you know it.”
“You could try.”
“Let me go, Lucifer.”
“Make me.”
“You know I can. We’ve trained together. You didn’t always win.”
“Maybe I let you win.”
“Let go,” I say softly, not about to fight with him in a parking lot.
But he doesn’t let me go. He pulls me closer, aligns our bodies so ridiculously close that I can feel how hard he is all over, everywhere. “What are you doing?” I demand.
“This,” he says, his fingers tangling in my hair, his mouth slanting over my mouth, intensely demanding.
His tongue licks into my mouth with a long, seductive, commanding swipe, and then another that consumes me and the anger I try desperately to hold onto. This is a game to him, one meant to punish me, one that’s about control—his and not mine—and he’s winning. I want to push him away. I want to shout at him to stop this back and forth and all the torment that comes with it. But he proves all too easily that I have no resistance where he’s concerned.
I’m without the will to fight him, weak, so ridiculously weak where Luke is concerned. As always with this man, he demands and I demand more, not less. In my mind, I want to fight him, I want to fight with him, I want to push him to talk. Instead, I am instantly desperate for more of him, my body pliable, wet, aching. I want to be back in the hotel, stripping him naked and punishing him for hating me, even if it’s me that deserves the punishment.
Fine.
He wants to play this game, I’ll play. I melt into him, kiss him back, my hands stroking up his back, over his body. As if he senses the change in me, as if he fears I’ll be in control, not him, he pulls back, lips lingering above mine, our breathing heavy, labored. “Damn you, woman,” he murmurs, and then he releases me, quickly putting space between us.
He leans against the truck, hands on his hips, a lift of his chin as he says. “Go to the bathroom so we can get back on the road.”
He didn’t win. I’m just not sure I won, either. I’m not sure there is a way for either of us to win, and I’m not sure what that means. I walk toward the store, my lips swollen, every part of me humming from his touch. I need that bathroom, and I pray it’s the small, one-stall spot that I can use to pull myself together.