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)
Panic surged, and I pushed forward, trying to get around him to get to the dial.
Only he took me by the wrist.
Gently, though it might as well have been a shackle with the way a flashfire of heat whipped up my arm.
Those eyes held me as fiercely as his massive hand.
Eyes so vibrantly green they would spark like the clearest emerald except for the golden flecks that tempered the starkness with texture and depth. The rings that encircled the irises that always seemed to glow.
The same eyes as Maci possessed.
Though his smoldered.
Dangerously.
“Don’t.” It was the softest plea that he issued too close to my mouth.
“Don’t what?” I managed to fire back through gritted teeth, fighting the awareness in my body that didn’t seem to give a damn about the warning bells that were going off in my mind.
“Don’t run from me.” His voice was coarse.
I managed to find a frazzled huff of disbelief as I dug around for the defenses I needed to erect. “Don’t run from you? You’re the one holding me hostage in my hotel elevator. And how did you even know I was staying here? Creeper much?”
He didn’t relent. Didn’t let go. He only leaned in closer.
The scent of cedar and clove invaded my senses.
“You’re the one who showed up at my door this morning then promptly ran once I answered it. You want to tell me why you were there?”
“I got lost.” I tried to spit it, but it came out shaky.
With a tip of his head to the side, he edged forward.
The longer pieces of his warm, brown hair fell forward and brushed over the sharp lines of his forehead.
The vision rushed.
Fingers yanking at his hair, my body afire, a need so distinct coursing through me that I couldn’t see.
His hands on my hips as he spread me.
His head between my thighs as he shot me into an oblivion I hadn’t known existed.
Those eyes as he’d looked up at me.
Ensuring I was with him. That I wanted to be with him. That I felt safe. That for a moment, I was forgetting everything.
I gasped around it, trying to purge the memory from my brain, but he had to go and exhale this seductive sound that made me sure he knew exactly where my thoughts had been.
“You got lost and randomly showed up at my door?” His voice was a rough scrape whispered near my lips. “The man who had you spread out on his desk the night before? You just randomly showed up at his door the next morning?”
My knees knocked, but I managed to force out, “Yes.”
“No need to lie to me, Little Warrior.”
Little Warrior.
Tingles ran through me. Head to toe.
That’s what I had been doing for years.
Fighting.
Fighting the fears.
Fighting the grief.
Fighting the demons so I could find who I was supposed to be.
But right then?
What I was really fighting for was Maci.
“Know you’re in trouble.” He rumbled it like a threat.
Confusion narrowed my eyes, and the question slipped free before I could contemplate what I was opening myself up to. “What do you mean?”
His thumb began to stroke over the sensitive flesh at the inside of my wrist, and it took a second for me to realize what he was touching.
The words that I’d forever marked on my body.
Find me in the darkness, bring me to the light.
Fear. Gratitude. Hope. Grief.
They were all knitted in those ten little words.
“You think I can’t see the ghosts that play in your eyes?” he rumbled.
My chest clutched. God. He shouldn’t see. Shouldn’t know.
“I know you’re afraid of something. That you’re running or hiding. That you’re scared.” His thick throat bobbed as he swallowed, his voice deepening further as he murmured, “I’ll hold it if you’ll let me.”
A gush of air escaped my throat. I’d been afraid for so many years I no longer remembered what it was like not to be. But this fear had nothing to do with whatever he’d sensed in me the same way as I could sense the darkness in him.
This was about what my sister had asked me to do.
“And your little girl…” He trailed off, his tongue stroking his bottom lip in clear agitation.
My little girl.
My eyes went wide. I finally understood what he thought. The assumptions he must have made when he saw her in the car. He thought we were running from someone who was trying to hurt us, when I was pretty sure he was the only one who could hurt us right then.
I let go of a ragged exhale, reservations seeded deep when I finally gave. “We need to talk.”
Surprise seemed to bluster through his face, then he dipped his head, stepped back, and asked, “Where’s your daughter?”
Not my daughter. Your daughter.
Throat thick, I forced out, “She’s with my mother.”
“Good,” he said, then he shifted around so he could jam at the emergency button again before he pushed the button for the hotel lobby.