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)
It had happened here.
Right here.
I knew bad things could happen everywhere. I knew that in the big cities in Tennessee, worse crimes happened every day.
But in Bestens?
My Bestens?
I felt a tear break off down my cheek as finally, emotion cracked through me as the adrenaline slowly started to fade away.
“I didn’t think it could happen. I don’t want to feel unsafe here. This is my home.”
Draven wiped away my tear with his thumb, cradling my head in his hands for a moment. “This should never have happened to you,” he said softly.
He leaned in, pressing a kiss to my cheek.
His lips were so warm. So soft. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been kissed so tenderly, and it was only on my cheek.
I pulled in a shaky breath, swallowing. “I’m not even scared, deep down,” I told him. “I just feel… violated.”
“Exactly,” he said. “One of the worst things a person can feel.”
Draven knew it all too well. My heart was heavy, not just for myself, for my town, but for realizing just how much he must have felt this, too. Every time his trust or his safety was violated.
It wasn’t fucking fair.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
He squeezed my waist, then motioned toward Dominic’s car. “You’re coming with us.”
“Have you ever flown first class?” Dominic asked me as the flight attendants at the gate started the boarding process for the plane.
I puffed out a feeble laugh. “I’ve never flown before.”
He tried to hide his surprise, but I could tell he was shocked. “This should be an easy flight,” he told me. “We snagged the seats where you can lie down all the way. It’ll only be a few hours.”
Why the fuck are we leaving Tennessee at all?
When we’d first gotten in the car and they told me we were heading for the airport, it seemed like a good idea.
I wanted a distraction after the awful night I’d had.
And Draven had said that he needed to take care of some things back home anyway, and that it was a perfect opportunity to get me out of the state while he made a quick visit home. He claimed there was no danger of him being detained once we were back in Montana, because there was still no threat of him being thrown in jail yet.
He and Dominic assured me that “circumstances had changed” back in his hometown.
But I still worried that Draven was putting himself back into the lion’s den just to help me.
I’d told them there were plenty of nice hotels in Nashville or out in Memphis—even fancy ones that would meet their standards—but they were set on making a trip to Montana.
The first plane trip of my life.
As the plane began to board, we got on first, due to Dominic’s frequent flyer first class whatever-the-hell miles. I was already hesitant by the time we stepped onto the airplane but as we sat down in the seats, I felt like I was going to panic.
“Hey,” Draven said from the seat next to me. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I’m not sure.”
He hummed, leaning in to squeeze my thigh. “Never known a man who is more afraid to get on a plane than to be shot at with a gun,” he murmured. “You’re special, Max.”
“I don’t feel special. I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin and run back into that airport.”
“Try to relax. The view as we take off should be pretty.”
I was surprised as he reached down and took my hand in his, squeezing it.
He kept it there as the rest of the plane boarded. By the time the plane began to taxi along the runway, it was still there. I gazed down at his rose tattoo, and I was struck by how comforting it was to see it, now.
The same place I’d bitten him when we first met, because I thought he was a threat to my life.
Now when I saw that tattoo, I relaxed, my gaze tracing the gentle curves, the black lines, the crimson ink on each petal.
And when the rumble of the engines revved up and the plane began to take off, Draven squeezed my hand tighter.
“I’m right here,” he said.
The same thing he told me earlier.
I leaned up against the side of his body, every muscle in my body tensing up as the plane moved faster and faster until it lifted up into the air.
I was flying.
I couldn’t look out the window at first but when I finally did, I felt my heart drop like I was on a looping roller coaster.
My home. My city.
The lights looked beautiful overhead. A dark night with the twinkling lights of the city below us. Somewhere down there, miles away, was Bestens. Everything I’d ever known and loved.
Everything that had seemed so stable until recently.
There was a tight feeling in my throat like there had been earlier, but I wasn’t crying. And the higher we got up into the air, with each increasing mile, I felt calmer.