Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
I’m already standing by the time he finishes. Because what in the fucking hell have I been thinking? What the fuck has been going through my head? I got so wrapped up in trying to come up with the right words, the right apology, right fucking gesture that I didn’t say anything at all.
Fuck.
“Is this the girl you had me look into?” Ark asks just as I’m about to start walking away.
“Yeah,” I reply, distractedly.
“So your new sister, you mean,” Ark goes on.
“Stepsister,” I snap, anger striking my chest. “And fuck no, she’s not my sister.”
“Do you lo—” Byron asks next, totally cool and relaxed, sipping on his beer.
“That would be a fuck no too,” I cut him off before he could say the L word that I knew he was going to.
Why would I love her when love’s the most toxic thing in the world? When love almost destroyed my life as I knew it, made me alienate my twin brother, made me distant from my own family, fucked with my career, my game. Why would I make the mistake of falling in love again when it turned me into a poisonous creature that only knows how to bite the first time around?
Besides, I wasn’t very good at it, was I? The girl I loved left me for my brother. While I probably should’ve been paying attention to her, I was thinking about a girl with strawberry hair and cinnamon freckles. The girl I asked to be my distraction
So no, I do not love her. Love is the worst thing I could do to her. And that’s saying something, because I have done a lot of bad things to her. I am doing bad things to her even now. Including the fact that I haven’t told her yet. I haven’t told her that I’ve moved on. I know she thinks I’m still hung up on Isadora, but I’m not. And I’m not going to tell her, either, because I don’t want to give her any excuse to run. I don’t want her to know she’s free to go. I want the exact opposite of that. I want to tie her down, so she never leaves.
But.
For the first time in my godforsaken life, I also need to do the right thing. Which is to make sure she doesn’t fall in love with me and destroy her life in the process. I don’t know why people think love is such an amazing thing anyway. It gives you nothing but pain. And I want to protect her from that. So while I could somehow function after lying and cheating and deceiving to keep her, I won’t commit the ultimate crime and fall in love with her.
Or let her fall in love with me.
As I’m striding away, I hear Ark mutter under his breath, “Well, you keep telling yourself that,” Then, “And flowers. Get her flowers, you dumb asshole.”
Followed by Byron’s chuckle. “And prepare to spend the next two to three business days on your knees.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
He licked my blood.
Off my thighs, I mean. That night. I remember that. I remember everything, but something about that still makes me shiver. Probably because it was so primal, him cleaning my blood, licking it off, scraping it off with his teeth because it had dried on my skin. Or maybe it was the fact that he was on his knees. Beside the bed. He also had a warm washcloth in his hand meant to clean me between my thighs. But then he saw all that blood and decided to put his mouth on me. His hot, wet mouth, and cleaned me like an animal would.
I remember thinking it felt like he was worshipping me. Like I was a goddess or an angel and he was so overcome by the sight of me, he fell to his knees and decided to pray to me with his lips and tongue. I also remember climaxing one more time against his tongue. I wish I remembered what it felt like, his mouth on such an intimate place, but I was so tired. So out of it.
The only thing I remembered to do was ask him to promise me he wouldn’t go after his father after my baseball bat story. I was right when I said he’d taken so much of the man I love that he shouldn’t get any more. I also wanted to ask him to come to bed. To sleep with me, in my arms, because he’d had a rough night, after how his defenses came down for a bit. He had to have been emotionally and physically wrung out. So I wanted him to put his face on my chest so I could hold him tight, help him unwind. Help him focus away from the pain. Like he always wanted me to.