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)
I stared at her for the longest time, just swimming in those eyes. In her soul. In this beauty that was rolling out of her.
Finally, I gave her a slight nod of my head then took her by the waist and balanced her on her unsteady feet. I slipped off the edge of the chair and onto a knee, grabbed her black-lace panties, and worked them back up her legs and over her hips, situating her and making sure she was covered.
Exhaling, I pressed a kiss to her belly, not sure what the fuck had come over me, but certain right then this woman held the power to bring me to my knees.
Then I forced myself to stand.
“Come on, let’s get you home before I try to keep you.”
Before I fully stripped her out of those clothes and took her the way I was dying to. Before I pushed into a space I couldn’t go.
She warred, then she shook her head, hands coming out in front of her as she backed for the door.
“No. Stay right there. Let me remember you just like that. Let me remember this.”
A swell of protectiveness ramped inside me. “It’s fuckin’ late, and that asshole—”
“Please,” she cut me off. “Let me have this. Let me keep what happened in this room. I’ll never forget it.”
It went against every instinct I possessed, and as she pressed her back to the closed door, I found myself uttering, “And what if I want to see you again?”
Wistfulness rippled across her mouth. “I don’t live in Moonlit Ridge, and I think you and I both know this was a fleeting moment. A perfect one I’m going to cherish.”
My muscles ticked, the urge to wrap her up clawing through me, and I had to basically pry the word from where it was locked in my soul. “Okay.”
Nah, nothing about her walking out that door felt okay.
She fumbled around behind her to find the knob, and she hesitated, those eyes watching me from across the space.
Energy thrummed between us.
Both soothing and inciting.
She tipped me an awed smile. “Thank you.”
Then she turned and disappeared out the door.
FOUR
EMERY
Flustered, I pushed out through the front door of the bar and stepped onto the wood-plank sidewalk that ran the trendy main street of Moonlit Ridge, California.
Cool air gusted across my overheated flesh.
My skin flushed and flaming.
My heart still erratic and the vestiges of bliss still tickling through my nerves.
Did that really just happen?
I had to wonder if I’d made it up since the second I stepped out from the sanctity of those walls, the grief rebounded, reminding me of what I’d come here to do.
Except, I could still feel the burn of his hands and the imprint of his touch.
It was as if I’d been marked in some intrinsic way.
Altered and recalibrated.
Maybe there’d been a reason for me stumbling into this dive bar looking for a reprieve, after all.
But the reprieve I had found had gone so much deeper than I ever could have imagined.
Verging on impossible.
A bare hope I’d thought would never find fruition.
Guilt threatened to cut off the beauty of it. Guilt that I’d taken even a minute for myself.
For searching for something when this couldn’t be about me.
But maybe I really had needed the affirmation that I was alive. That I could stand after everything.
I hurried down the sidewalk in the direction of the hotel where we were staying. With each step, the hollowed-out cavern inside me howled.
Sorrow rushed in as I was set firmly back in reality.
There were only a few people milling about the small town at this time of night, the sidewalk and streets next to barren.
We were staying on Culberry Street in an old hotel that had been renovated into posh suites that overlooked the upscale street that ran through the main part of the town. A town that had a gorgeous lake and was surrounded by mountains on each side.
A beautiful small town that I was afraid was going to steal the last bit of joy from my mangled, shredded heart.
Head down and heart hammering, I passed by a high-end jewelry store, a bakery, and a tattoo shop called River of Ink. A single light shone from within, and I couldn’t help but think of the man who I’d left behind at the bar.
Of the designs that covered his flesh.
God, I doubted there was a chance I’d ever forget him.
Hugging my arms over my chest, I made it to the intersection and pressed the button for the pedestrian light.
I shifted on my feet as I waited, and my shoulders went rigid when I felt it.
An awareness that washed over me.
A rash of chills erupting on the nape of my neck.
Not the kind the stranger had written on me—a stranger who I’d been so wrapped up in that I hadn’t even caught his name—but the kind that sent unease sinking to the pit of my stomach.