Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
My mind and heart still trying to catch up to the way I’d fully given myself to him.
“Told you there’d be no erasing me once you had me. Told you I was going to write myself so deep on you that you’d be marked forever.”
But would it become a scar that he left?
Affection tightened my chest, and I realized I no longer believed that. This man was so much more than the imaginings I’d conjured. The way I’d believed he was my enemy, a horrible man who’d only used up my sister and tossed her away.
He rinsed my hair then gathered my hand and placed it over the thunder that pounded at his chest. “Just like you’re going to be on me.”
“Is that what you want? Me marked on you forever?”
That entrancing gaze danced. “Yeah, Emery. Told you that you changed everything. That there was something about you the first time I met you. And now I know it’s because you’re supposed to belong to me. With me.”
Guilt tugged again, though, this time it was different. The old dream that I’d shared with my twin that I’d been set on finally chasing. “I don’t know if I can just neglect taking over my sister’s store.”
She’d begged me to do it with her, then had left it to me. How could I turn my back on that?
Kane’s expression dimmed, and he seemed to struggle to force out the words. “Why don’t we not think about you leaving right now until we take care of whoever came after you this afternoon?”
A trace of the terror I’d felt earlier trickled through.
Uncertainty and horror.
I truly had no clue who it could have been. No understanding of why.
But I swore, it was like the monster had known who I was. The vile words he’d hissed at my ear.
Nausea tumbled in my stomach when I thought of all the chaos that Emmalee had written in that journal. Her obsession with what had happened to us.
Why couldn’t I give it to him?
I guessed because I felt like I needed to protect her. I didn’t want him to see the way she seemed to have lost little pieces of reality.
Had become consumed and unbalanced.
I couldn’t help but fear that she’d lost herself in a way that I hadn’t understood. Fear that maybe she allowed what had happened to us to destroy her, so she destroyed herself.
How could I betray that? Give that to anyone else?
Kane ran the pad of his thumb along the hollow of my eye. “No one is getting close to you, Emery. You’re not going to be alone until we figure this out. Either me or one of my crew will be right next to you. Because you’re our family. All of ours.”
The impact of his statement punched through me, and my chin trembled as I gave him a slight nod, though old fear kept the words that threatened to escape trapped on my tongue.
The emotion that rose up from the places where I thought my hopes and dreams would exist.
All because of this man.
“You make me feel so different, Kane. So real and alive. Vibrant when I’d been living my life in grayscale.”
“That’s because you were meant to shine, Little Warrior. You just needed someone to help you stand in the light.”
He took my arm with the tattoo and tenderly ran his fingers over the inscription.
Find me in the darkness, bring me to the light.
That familiarity roiled between us. A humming connection that keened. Memories of that time flooded me. The reason I’d gotten it and what it represented.
And I guessed it had come to mean something brand new.
My hand was shaking as I let my fingertips trace over the images on his chest. The dueling demons on his pecs. His own ghosts that haunted him.
He stared down at me the entire time.
An understanding passed between us as we stood beneath the warmth of the shower, the fall dragging us into a dream.
Kane grabbed a loofah and doused it in soap, then he carefully dragged it over every inch of my body.
Nothing about it felt like he was cleaning me. It felt as if he were worshipping me.
The way he ran it in circles.
Softly.
Tenderly.
Over my shoulders and breasts.
He crouched as he did the same down my abdomen, the man kneeling in front of me as he pressed gentle kisses to the spots he’d just washed.
While I ran my fingers through his drenched hair, across his neck and shoulders. Whispers and sighs left me as he continued, as he showered me in an adoration unlike anything I’d experienced before.
Then I turned and did the same to him.
Exploring his glorious body as I ran the sponge over him.
Memorizing the colors and lines as I went.
Shivering with the realization that I’d never been cut wide open and exposed like this. There was no reservation or hesitation left.