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)
“Won’t be gone for more than twenty-four hours.” His words were a rumble of ferocity as he said the same thing he’d repeated at least three times in the last hour.
Like he was trying to convince me of it. Or maybe himself.
Unease churned in my spirit, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was worried that he might not make it back.
That whatever this was could bring him to his end.
Horror coiled in my guts at the thought of it. He’d come to mean so much more than I ever should have let him.
Because I couldn’t bear the thought of him risking himself. Couldn’t stand the thought of losing someone else who meant everything.
I wrung my hands as I stood three feet behind him. “Are you sure you have to go?”
Tension ridged his spine, and he stilled where he was about to shove his toiletry bag into the top.
A sigh rippled out of him, and he turned to face me.
So big and menacing. So intimidating and fierce that I knew there was no chance that he wasn’t exactly that.
Dangerous.
He took a step forward, and the ground trembled beneath my feet. The man an earthquake. A riptide. A force that I didn’t know how to evade.
A big, tatted hand came to the side of my face.
Tender and right.
My heart flailed, begging for me to snip the last thread that kept me dangling over the edge.
To just let go.
He dropped his forehead to mine. His breaths were short and rasped as he murmured, “This is something I have to do, Emery. Something I have to do because it’s a part of who I am. Part of the oath I made.”
My eyes squeezed shut as my hands fisted in his shirt. “What oath?”
I was ready.
I needed to know.
How could I fully trust him if I didn’t know what he was involved in?
He breathed out, hand so warm where he had it pressed to my cheek, his spirit feeling as if it was sucking me into the depths of his soul.
As if he were inhaling me into all those secret places that he still kept hidden. Trying to show me when the words had been forbidden to fall from his tongue.
“Want you to know all of me, Em. But I’m terrified of what you’re going to do when you find out.”
Kane eased back, gazing down at me.
“River is going to keep watch over you and Maci while I’m gone.”
“Is that really necessary?” Maybe I wanted him to lie to me and tell me that it wasn’t. That he believed us completely safe. But I knew that wasn’t the case.
Emerald eyes flashed and sparked. “Yes, it is. Won’t take a chance like that. Not with you and not with her. Not when both of you are the most important thing to me.”
That thing I hadn’t understood billowed in the bare space that separated us, fighting for me to give into it.
To surrender.
“Please, be careful.”
Come back to me.
Come back to me.
“I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to me. Not when I know what’s waiting for me when I return.”
For a moment, we stayed locked. Gazes tangled and souls whispering.
Then he dipped in and took my mouth.
The kiss was slow.
Swirling with the type of passion I didn’t know if I could handle. The type that made me sway, my spirit quaking with the truth.
I wanted to weep when he pulled away, and he dropped his forehead back to mine as he cupped my face in both his hands. “Need to go.”
He peeled himself away and strode back to the bed. He tossed the rest of his things into the duffel and zipped it. I followed him out as he slung it over his shoulder.
He went straight for Maci’s room, quietly setting his bag on the floor outside her door before he crept into the muted light, while I remained hovering near the door.
He stood at the side of her bed, staring down at the child who was fast asleep.
Soft blonde waves strewn around her precious face.
Emotion poured out of him as he leaned down and brushed a kiss to her temple. His words were so quiet I didn’t know how I heard them. “You are my life, Angel Face. Daddy loves you. So much that I didn’t even know this type of love existed. And I promise that I’ll always come back to you.”
Reluctantly, he straightened, then he moved toward me.
Ferocity and fervency radiated from his forbidding form.
Chills skimmed across my flesh as he came to stand in front of me, a tower that hedged me in his intensity.
His hand slipped back to my cheek.
Energy thrashed. A gale force in the middle of the room.
“Had no clue, Emery.” His voice was a low, rugged scrape. “No clue that this type of love existed.”
I knew that time he intended the confession for me, and that love that I’d been trying to suppress ricocheted around in the depths of me.