Total pages in book: 331
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
After I’m done, I wash my hands and walk back through the bedroom, out the door, and to the hallway. I need a cigarette. Making my way to the kitchen, I grab my bag and unzip the front pocket and then step out on the balcony to light one up with my cell in hand.
I’ve had it turned off since I got the text about Dollhouse. Sin keeps me updated on Carnage and tells me that my brothers are going mad wondering where I am. Especially since Haidyn knows I’m with Eve.
He thinks I’m hiding her from him. I am, but that’s beside the point. Once she’s my Lady, he can’t do shit to her. I’ll have control. Physically, mentally, medically. Until the day I die. Then it’s up to whoever I choose to leave as her guardian. I would have chosen Haidyn before. Now I’m not so sure.
I bring the cigarette to my lips, thinking about what she said to me before she fell asleep. She wanted me to fuck her. The sad part is I wanted to, but I’m afraid it’s too soon and I’ll scare her. I never want to see her shaking while she cowers on the floor because she thinks I’m going to hurt her. Not like that.
“Kash?”
I turn to see her standing in the living room, eyes heavy and the bedsheet wrapped around herself. I put out my cigarette and step inside. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You didn’t.” She yawns and opens the sheet to let me in, and my eyes fall over her naked body. She has some bruising where the restraints held her down while she fought, but it’s not bad. Nothing that won’t be gone in a few more days. Gavin checked her thigh and changed her dressing when he stopped by to give her the IV. He said it was healing nicely. “The music downstairs is loud.”
“Come on. I’ll tuck you back in.”
She pulls away, taking a step back, and I pause, watching the way her gaze drops to the floor.
This is why I didn’t fuck her. She’s not ready. I want her to be feisty and throwing punches at my face, not cowering at the sight of me.
Swallowing, she glances up at me through her lashes, and I search her face to try and read her thoughts, but there’s nothing there. Just pretty green nothing—blankness.
“Talk to me, angel.”
“Do you really want to marry me?”
Without a doubt. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“What if I told you that you don’t know everything about me?”
“I’d tell you I’m here to listen whenever you’re ready to share.” I don’t think she knows everything about herself. The fact that she couldn’t remember that Evan raped her told me what I need to know. She’s suppressed so much of her past, there’s no telling what happened to her.
“I…” She looks away and takes in a shaky breath. “I can’t give you kids.”
I frown, confused, because she knows that I’m aware of this. She told me and a room full of Lords at Blackout.
“I was raped and got pregnant,” she whispers, and my stomach knots at her confession.
Fuck. Eve doesn’t know that I’m aware of what the Spade brothers did to her. What my father did to her.
“You know my biological father is Garrett Reeves, but what you don’t know is that he raped me.” Wrapping the sheet tighter around herself, she continues. “He and all of the Spade brothers’ fathers raped me.”
I swallow the lump in my throat for the horror she’s been through and the fact that she’s finally opening up to me.
“They tried to get me pregnant for years,” she sniffs, and I want to wrap my arms around her, but I cross them over my chest and stay where I’m at. “When I finally did…my father told me that if it was a girl…he’d set it on fire,” Eve chokes out. “But then he changed his mind and said that he hoped I had a girl so she could be useful—give him what I couldn’t. He was going to rape her…” Placing her hand over her mouth, she begins to sob. “But a boy would give him another chance. He’d force him to fuck me…maybe he’d have better luck…”
I can’t hold back. I rush to her and wrap her trembling body in my arms. “I’m so sorry, Eve.” But it won’t matter. They’re just words. They can’t change her past or her feelings.
She pulls away, and I allow it, brushing some wild strands of blond hair from her tear-streaked face. “My father had a man come and pick me up…take me somewhere…”
“To where?” I wonder. I already know the piece of shit is dead.
She shakes her head and sniffs. “I didn’t know who he was or where he was taking me, but I saw an opportunity.” Her red-rimmed eyes find mine. “I had to do it.” She swallows. “I couldn’t…wouldn’t let the Lords ruin another innocent life. I had to protect my baby.”