Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
It was fucking Alex. It was fucking Alex, my brain processed. I just about wheezed.
He was crouched beside me on the floor, clutching the blanket directly under my chin. I couldn’t have been asleep that long because I didn’t feel too groggy. My shoulder didn’t feel like it was about to fall off either, not like that morning.
“What the hell?” I gasped, blinking into the darkness. “What are you doing?” My heart was about to burst out of my damn chest from him scaring the hell out of me like that cat in Alice in Wonderland. “Fucking fuck.”
Even in the dark, I could tell he leaned to the side a moment before the lamp on the nightstand turned on, giving me a decent view of him. He was fully dressed in those deceptively normal clothes that almost made me forget what he was. Who he was.
I hadn’t seen him in hours. I’d stayed upstairs practically the whole day, only sneaking down after listening long enough to make sure he wasn’t in the kitchen. He hadn’t been in the house, period, I’d discovered after creeping around. I’d had a feeling he was gone, and I’d been right. So was Selene.
“What are you doing on the floor?” the man known to the world as The Defender asked in a growl as he dropped into another crouch.
I licked my lips and set my palms on the floor, pushing myself up to a sitting position. “Sleeping,” I told him, sounding annoyed because I was. What did it look like? I was trying my best not to bother him, so why did he have to come in here and wake me up? I’d closed the door.
“Why are you on the floor?” he asked again, like I hadn’t heard him the first time.
A sudden reminder of everything that had transpired between us filled my head, and that same sadness and anger mixture made my throat tighter than it already was. “Because I’m sleeping on it. That’s why my eyes were closed.” Real mature, Gracie.
His gaze narrowed. “You want to sleep on the floor?”
I rubbed at my eyes, annoyed. So damn annoyed. “Do you need something?” He’d barely talked to me all day. I wasn’t sure what he could have possibly suddenly wanted while I was dead asleep, but all right. Maybe it was something really important.
Or maybe he was telling me to get the hell out already.
“You’re still sick,” he said, his gaze moving from my face down to my lap where the blanket was bunched. A little knot formed between his brows. “Why’d you want to sleep on the floor?”
I focused on a plank of the dark floor. I wondered what kind of wood it was. “I already told you,” I answered, hearing the edge in my voice.
“Why?”
“Because I want to.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say the second it came out of my mouth. I should have made something up. The mattress hurt my back. There were bedbugs. I didn’t feel safe. Something else. Anything else.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his chin drop toward his throat, and those purple eyes flashed in the lamp-lit room. “You’re lying.”
I kept the sigh in my mouth and lifted my gaze to focus on the dresser knob in front of me. If I didn’t answer him, I wouldn’t be lying. There. Problem solved.
His hand moved so fast that his cool fingers were under my chin before I’d even blinked. “Tell me the truth.”
I tried to look at the ceiling, but he moved his face back into my line of sight, the son of a bitch.
He was frowning. “Since when do you not look me in the eye?”
Is that what he wanted? Fine. I did it. I even made them wider than normal so he wouldn’t have anything to complain about.
And those intense eyeballs did what they wanted to do. They moved over me, once, then twice, down my throat, where they lingered… below. I’d put on a tank top to sleep. I hadn’t worn a bra; my nipples were on the bottom of my list of things to worry about. If they offended him, he could only blame his own damn self for looking at them. When I’d been younger, I’d been so self-conscious about my boobs. My grandma had made me buy shirts two sizes bigger to hide them.
They weren’t hiding now.
A hell of a lot slower than I would have expected, his attention moved back toward my face. His frown was gone, a scowl in its place. Again.
Oh boy.
“I don’t have the patience for your bullshit today, little monster. Tell me why you’re on the floor,” he grumbled, annoyed.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
Reaching up, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled.
It didn’t do shit, but his eyes went hooded, and I could tell, I could tell, he was mad. Madder at least.