Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“I don’t think I trust you,” he said. “Yet. But I did like watching you. The other day.”
A quiet desire stirred inside me.
Wasn’t expecting you to admit that to yourself ever again, let alone to me.
I nodded. “I know.”
He kept looking down at my lips and then back to my eyes again. Was he going to try to kiss me?
Faint pink slashes appeared on his cheeks and he blinked like he was taking himself out of a trance.
“Do you have some peroxide or rubbing alcohol for that cut, by the way?” he asked.
“First aid kit was one of the first things I bought,” I said. “I get good use out of them.”
He nodded. “Have a good night, Draven.”
I watched him walk back to his car, suppressing every urge to push him up against the front wall of the house and drag his pants down.
I want to tear you apart.
And I also want to hold you close until I can fucking guarantee you are safe, forever.
Both of them are impossible.
Because I don’t know how to handle nice boys.
I don’t know how to handle anything, anymore.
My dreams were bad that night. I was back in Montana, and everything seemed wrong. Everything had been wrong and getting worse, for far too long.
In the dream things were normal, at first. Up in my bedroom, with the view overlooking the field that gave way to the striking dusky purple mountains behind it. The last remnants of evening light came through my tall windows as I lay on my bed.
But when I turned back to the other side of the bed, Max was there.
Max.
Small-town, big-hearted Max.
You shouldn’t be here.
My heart lurched somewhere up into my throat.
Max tossed away the bedsheets and he was naked underneath, looking over at me like he was more than proud to show me himself. Smooth skin. Firm muscles. Nothing to hide.
“Not here,” I said in the dream.
“Want you to destroy me,” he said.
“You shouldn’t.”
He brought his palm onto my chest, dragging it down my skin, his fingers brushing over the lines of my tattoos and resting at my hip. And then he moved in closer. He was insistent, leaning in to bite my earlobe.
My cock ached. My entire body ached.
I wanted to touch him, badly. I wanted to pin him down and fuck him—fuck his mouth, fuck his ass, come inside his perfect body and, yes, give him what he asked for and destroy him, before I rested a while and then took him to pieces all over again. He was nibbling gently at my neck now, his breath on my skin, and it felt like I was handling live ammunition.
If I touched him, we’d both explode like a grenade.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
The rest of my life orbited around me like a dark swarm, ready to suffocate. To pull me back in, and Max along with me.
No.
He deserves better.
A sharp protective urge went through me and I groaned as Max’s hand roamed lower, finally landing on my cock.
And in the dream I did what I never could: I denied myself.
“Want you to fuck me,” Max was murmuring as he palmed my cock.
“No.”
He begged.
I’d talked such a big game, coming to Tennessee and toying with him. Sending him pictures. Telling him he’d love my tongue.
Now, in my dream, he was begging, and it was like a brick wall had come up inside me. I felt the crushing weight of how much I wanted to relent, but then the weight of my life, too, as massive as the mountains outside. How people got hurt if they stayed near me, one way or another.
Or how people always realized, eventually, that I was bad news. Unwanted. A dead end. Always making bad decisions and never stopping to regret any of them. Even Lily hadn’t left my world unscathed, even though every part of my relationship with her had been different.
No good road to go down.
I can’t ruin you like everything I touch.
Then Max was on top of me in the bed, looking down at me, hungry and wanting.
“I know you,” he was saying. “I know you.”
“You don’t—”
He leaned down to kiss me and before his lips touched mine I woke up, sweating in a bed far, far away from my home.
The early light of dawn was filling the room. I sucked in air, shifting on the bed, reorienting in a room so different from any I’d slept in before.
My heart was pounding. I sat up on the mattress, looking out past the paned windows of the double doors. Outside, there were rose bushes, trees, and green. In here, there was nothing other than a bed and a side table.
The bedroom in this house was one of the few places that didn’t need too much renovation work. The morning light made it look almost pretty in here. Real hardwood, and a simple view out into the backyard.