Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
“I’m jealous your friends sent someone for you.” He chuckled, looking up at me. “I think my people forgot about me.”
“Find people who don’t.”
I glided the blade up over his jaw, feeling the heat of his gaze.
“I did,” he said.
Us? We’re not his people. Not yet, anyway.
“Demanding obedience through intimidation doesn’t encourage loyalty,” I told him. “Only earning it can.”
He fell silent, watching me as I shaved against the grain of his cheek and chin. He knew what the hell I meant. Micah, Rory, and Taylor didn’t respect him. They were afraid of him.
“I know,” he finally replied. “You couldn’t get her to stay in the house. I did, and I didn’t have to raise a hand to do it.” He gazed up at me. “I didn’t even have to raise my voice. That’s loyalty.”
My gaze twitched.
“You have her heart, but I’m in her head now,” he taunted. “With a woman like Emory Scott, which do you think she’ll listen to?
I didn’t even have to think about that answer twice. My hand shook as I cleaned his upper lip.
“When you make your escape, do you think Emmy will run with you and your whore?” he asked.
I shot up straight, the blade clasped in my hand as I glared down at him.
She’s not staying here with you.
“I think when I make my escape,” I told him, “I’m taking a lot more than those girls.”
He laughed, pulling off the towel around his neck and wiping his face clean. “She is stunning,” he said. “I liked it when she grabbed your throat today. Many men don’t even know how much they’d like being dominated. But it’s such a turn on. She fucked you good. I really think she’s come alive here.”
I locked my jaw, using every ounce of restraint to keep my temper in check.
He’d seen us in the greenhouse. He’d watched her ride me.
I dropped the blade and walked out of the room, every muscle in my body on fire.
He didn’t get to have her.
I charged back to her room, threw open the door, and walked over to her bed as she shot up and looked at me in the light streaming in from the hallway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
But I didn’t say a damn word.
I grabbed her glasses off the nightstand, slid my arms under her, sheets and all, and swept her up into my arms, taking her to my room with Alex and me.
There was no fucking way I was taking my eyes off her tonight.
She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, her eyes on me the entire way up to the third floor and to my bed.
God, who the hell brought her here? She was ruining all my plans.
Will
Nine Years Ago
A locker slammed shut, echoing down the corridor, and I lifted the bottle to my mouth, downing another swallow of bourbon.
Motherfuckers. What the hell were they doing? How long had it been going on?
I knew something was up.
I leaned against a stack of mats in the wrestling room, hearing the locker door open down the hall as “Apologize” played low on the speaker next to me.
I swallowed another mouthful, remembering tucking her in last night in her room.
Like an imbecile.
After our fight at school today, I went out tonight, celebrating Devil’s Night with my friends and a full mind to move the hell on. Get shitfaced and see if there was anyone I thought would make me feel better, because she treated me like shit, and I was sick of chasing after the girl I knew was meant for me but who didn’t want me.
She gave me almost no reciprocation.
Except last night.
But today, she was back in full form, acting like I was a pity fuck. Like I wasn’t good enough.
My friends and I went to the cemetery and partied.
We went to the Pope in Meridian City.
And partied some more.
I just couldn’t forget her, no matter how much I drank. I caught a cab back to Thunder Bay, but instead of going home, I carried my ass to school and to our bus parked in the lot. I snuck on and plopped down in the backseat, remembering how’d she felt last night. How good her desire and love felt.
I sat in there and just got drunker, thinking about her, and then I looked out the window and saw them.
Damon and her. Walking into the school.
I blinked, not sure I was seeing right, because everything was spinning, but…I finally climbed off the bus and followed them.
I closed my eyes, inhaling a breath as their footsteps approached down the hall.
They weren’t tough to find. In a school this old—and being nearly empty this time of night—I’d heard the water running as I trailed down the hallway. My legs went weak, my stomach rolled, and I slipped inside the locker room, seeing them as I rounded a row of lockers.