Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Flushed, overheated, Theo put down her nutrient drink with too much force and said, “I’d like to try dancing.” If she was going to explode, she’d rather do it experiencing life than hiding away from it.
Once she knew the full truth of her past, she might never again get the chance to dance with her bear. She’d slam her own prison door shut, cut herself off from any chance of happiness.
The clock was counting down to an endless dark midnight.
Because Theo knew she was fooling herself. Rehabilitation erased a person, made them nothing, a blank surface devoid of memory or personality.
She was very much Theo.
So it must’ve been Theo who disabled cars or elevators at critical moments, sending them careening into a wall or smashing to the ground. It must’ve been Theo who opened all those locked doors to places where people thought they were safe. And it must’ve been Theo who’d switched out one pill with another.
Medication for poison.
So easy for a 2.7 with rapier control who happened to be sitting at the table right next door to her target.
Theo. Theo. Theo.
No one else.
Guilt weighed her down even as Yakov took her hand and led her to the dance floor. She shoved off the heavy stone of it with desperate hands. Tomorrow, she promised the ghosts that haunted her. Tomorrow you can have your pound of flesh. I just want one night.
One night to not be responsible for a terrible choice made by a girl hungry for acceptance.
One night to exist without the crushing awareness of what she’d done.
One night to be free.
Yakov’s hand was warm and a little rough-skinned around hers, his hold firm. Because he cared about her comfort, he didn’t lead her deep into the dancers. He did, however, situate them away from the table as well as Stasya and Hakon—and inside a section of the dance floor where shadows pooled, liquid and soft.
Lost in the dark.
Safe from watchful eyes.
Then he turned and put his hands on her waist, at the very edge of her hips. Having seen how other couples danced, she put her hands on his shoulders, the hard muscle of them flexing under her touch.
It was shockingly intimate.
Dimples flashing, he began to move, putting light pressure on her hips with his hands to teach her how to flow with the music, teach her how to dance. Every so often he’d speak against her ear, his lips brushing the curves of it to praise her. “Perfect. Just like that. You’re a natural dancer, pchelka.”
Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her body rubbing against his with every move. He was aroused. She could feel the hard ridge of it against her, and she wondered if he could feel her nipples the same way. They’d pebbled against the soft fabric of the dress until the friction was torturous.
But she didn’t pull away. Couldn’t pull away.
It felt as if she’d die of thirst if she broke this sensuous connection that was a slide of bodies on bodies, heat on heat.
* * *
* * *
SHIFTING his hold, Yakov pressed one hand against Theo’s lower back, her body so close to his that he could’ve easily hitched her up onto his hips, slid up her dress, and—fuck, he didn’t need to be having erotic fantasies on the dance floor.
His rigid cock didn’t need any more encouragement.
The sight of Theo’s pleasure was more than enough. It didn’t matter that they were surrounded by others—he knew her scent, could taste the rich musk of her arousal, and it was taking everything he had not to dip his head and lick up the light layer of perspiration along her throat, eat up her taste.
But that would mean taking his eyes off the flushed beauty of her face. As they danced, he watched the black of her pupils expand, grow, and eclipse the blue until her gaze was an endless midnight.
“I don’t know what’s happening.” Theo’s voice was grit—but she made no indication she wanted distance between them.
Yet those eyes . . . He remembered too late the meaning of such an eclipse. Swearing under his breath, he said, “This is enough. I’m not going to take advantage of you when you’re overwhelmed by—”
“Stop.” The single word was hard, furious.
Man and bear both went motionless.
Chapter 41
—no air in my lungs, only this endless—
A brush of your finger over my—
—agony sweet and painf—
Your thighs thrusting between—
—pulse inside me, lover mi—
—“Fragments of a Torn-up Letter” by Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)
(Original multimedia piece sold to an anonymous private collector for ten million dollars at auction in 2047. Currently on loan to the British Museum.)
“I’M NOT A doll to be arranged as you wish.” The anger of a warrior queen in her voice. “Neither am I a child to have my decisions made for me. I know exactly who I am. And I know exactly what I want.”