Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
He drained his beer and set it on the counter. “Maybe it’s time you asked yourself exactly what it is you think you’re achieving by rejecting that gift.”
The second he said it, Piper peeked at me.
Arctic eyes warmer than they’d ever been. Her stunning face flushed and her cheeks pinked. Those lips tipping up at the sides.
Like that was what she wanted to be.
A gift.
Like all the secrets between us didn’t matter. Like my sins didn’t count. Like maybe she’d let me hold the fear of whatever she was running from.
“That’s what I thought,” Otto gruffed as he reached over from the side and smacked me across the chest before he went sauntering around the couch to get to Raven. “I’m coming for you, my Moonflower.”
He grabbed her and slipped an arm around to her lower back. With his other hand, he took hers and started flinging her around the way he always did.
The two each other’s perfect match.
Kane and River popped up to join the riot, these guys who were hard and dangerous as fuck going soft when it came to their women.
Standing there, I knew that Otto was all fucking wrong. What I did was unforgivable.
Reprehensible.
And it still didn’t seem to matter as I drained my beer and set the glass next to Otto’s and went ambling out into the fray.
Scooping Finn up before I slid my free arm around Piper’s waist.
She froze for a beat as I pulled her close. Her eyes widened, whirling with a thousand questions before she gave, just the same way as I was apparently trying to do.
Her hand slid up to lock at the nape of my neck while the other went to her son’s back as we began to move.
Finn held between us as I gazed down at his mom’s perfect face.
This woman I shouldn’t want.
The one who’d weaved her way through every crack that she had made.
This woman I could feel like thunder through my veins.
And I dropped my nose to hers as I whispered, “I told you I had nothing left to give, so why do I want to give you everything?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
THEO
It was close to ten as I followed Piper’s Volvo down the long, winding drive that led to The Sanctuary.
The sky was clear, a billion stars scattered over the canopy stretched overhead.
The moon was close to full, and it cast a silvered glow over the vast expanse of winter white.
My bike rumbled through the silent night as we kept a slow pace. Cold wind whipped at my face, lashing across the bare portions of my skin, though I’d never felt this close to burning up.
I feared whatever had gone down between me and Piper at Otto and Raven’s had shifted something intrinsic inside me.
Had breached a place that I couldn’t fuckin’ let her. And there she was, invading every crevice of my being.
Piper eased down the drive, and the concentrated thick of trees fell away as the road opened to the big lot that fronted the main portion of the motel. She continued down the smaller lane that dipped back into the forest before the two small cabins came into view.
I spotted Jonah doing a sweep of the perimeter, his flashlight bobbing through the darkness as he searched for anything amiss.
I found solace in it—the fact that Alicia and Lucy were being watched when I clearly was losing my footing. Slipping from my purpose and drawn toward something that I never expected.
Piper eased the small SUV into the spot beside Unit B, and I pulled my bike to a stop directly in front of her cabin.
I killed the engine.
Silence rushed in to cover the roar.
In it, I could almost hear the thunder of her heart from where she remained in the car.
I sucked for oxygen.
Clarity.
Or maybe I was just looking for some kind of resolve since it was clear I was traveling the most disloyal, treacherous path. But there seemed to be no other destination.
No other place to go but striding up to the driver’s side door of the Volvo.
I cracked it open and was instantly hit with a rush of this woman.
Light and life and that sweet cherry-blossom scent.
She looked up at me with those arctic eyes.
Peering into them was like touching a vast blue horizon.
Like gazing at the sun rising and setting at the same damn time.
“Hey,” she whispered, her voice uncertain. Apparently, neither of us knew what we were doing.
Chained by this thing that strummed between us like a brand-new life beat that hummed in our blood.
“Hey,” I murmured.
I stretched out my hand.
She took it, teeth chewing at that plump bottom lip as I helped her out. Woman driving me out of my fucking mind with that slight action that told of her own insecurities and questions.
I wanted to be the one to wipe them away.