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)
And right then, I needed to feel something different. Something different than the grief that had chained me for the last three months. Grief that I was terrified was going to get even more awful come tomorrow.
“Ah, now see, one should never drink tequila alone,” he said in that growly, mesmerizing voice.
“Is that so?” I drew out.
Was I flirting with him?
“Oh yeah,” he returned, just the hint of a cocky smile arching at the edge of his mouth. He picked up a bottle of silver tequila from a shelf that ran the backside of the small bar and filled two tumblers half full.
Then he sauntered back my way, two glittering glasses dangling from either hand.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest.
His striking features slipped between brutal, curious, and sly.
Like he held a million secrets, and he’d be all too willing to steal all of mine.
God, I really must have been drunk because I swore an aura built up around him with every step that he took. A dark light that glowed. An energy that pummeled and bashed and soothed.
I fumbled to set the glass of water onto the side table next to the couch.
“Here you go, beautiful.” He passed me the tumbler in his left hand, and my attention dropped to the tattoo he had stamped on the back of it.
It looked like some kind of symbol.
Two stacked Ss with a dagger running down the middle. An eye sat directly in the middle of it, and at the top of the dagger was a wilting black rose with its petals falling off.
I didn’t know why, but the sight of it impaled me with an arrow of sadness.
With loss.
Like maybe for one second, I could see his pain, too. That his mirrored mine.
He moved to sit in the office chair behind the desk that sat in the middle of the room. Swiveling it toward me, he stretched his long, thick legs out in front of him.
It left about three feet of space between us, but still, I felt him like a landslide. Like a shifting of tectonic plates inside me.
Or maybe my life had gotten so mangled, I couldn’t discern what was already broken and all my shattered pieces were finally falling away.
Whatever it was, it ached, throbbed, as if for one second, he might be able to assuage it.
“What’s your name?” His voice was cut low.
His words shards that coasted through the dense, dense air.
“Emery,” I whispered.
Something flashed through his expression. “Well, Emery, it doesn’t look like we’re celebrating tonight, so here’s to not drinkin’ alone.”
Leather creaked as he sat forward in the chair, and the man stretched out his glass to clink it against mine. The faintest grin danced over his lush, tempting lips.
The man a dose of wicked bliss that would likely be fatal in the end.
I softly tapped my glass to his. “To not drinking alone.”
I tipped the glass to my lips. A fire charged down my throat as I took a sip, but it was different than what I had been drinking.
Smoother.
Almost sweeter.
I let the flavor roll around on my tongue before I mumbled, “Not cheap tequila.”
He canted his head to the side. “Figured after whatever kind of night you’ve had, you deserve the best.”
I wavered before I finally forced my appreciation off my tongue. “That was kind of you. All of it.”
My voice took on a deep sincerity as I glanced at the door.
Electric green eyes sparked beneath the warm light emitted from the fixture hanging above the desk. “Not gonna sit around and watch some asshole try to take something someone doesn’t want to give them. Especially when they’re clearly having a vulnerable moment.”
“Is that what I look like? Vulnerable?” I didn’t mean for it to come out a challenge. But I couldn’t stop it. That armor I’d worn for years hardening around everything that was vulnerable.
His gaze roamed over me.
Slowly.
Meticulously.
Fire flamed in the middle of it. Tension binding the air as he dragged his attention all the way down then slowly back up to my face. “You look like a whole lot of things.”
He eased forward a fraction. “A warrior. A fighter. A fiery temptation sitting on that couch, though it appears to me someone attempted to put that flame out.”
His voice scraped across my flesh. A rough caress I was foolish enough to want to feel over every inch.
His tongue stroked out across his plush lips before he continued, “You look like the perfect kind of fantasy that I have no right dreaming.”
My stomach pulled tight. A foreign sensation that should be impossible to feel.
But it was there, flickering beneath my skin.
A slow burn that I’d never experienced before.
He kept inching forward, the wheels of the chair bringing him closer as he angled my direction.
My breaths turned jagged and shallow.
Less than a foot away, he reached out and brushed the pad of his thumb along my cheek, so soft I thought I might crumble beneath the tender touch. “But most of all…right now…you look fuckin’ sad.”