Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 206(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 206(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Allister Marshall is built like a wrecking ball and runs a club where every down-on-their-luck stray can change their life. What this big bruiser doesn’t have? Any clue what to do with a woman. He’s been holding his v-card for the one, thank you very much, and the day he unlocks a forgotten basement dungeon and finds the most beautiful woman alive chained inside, every cell in his oversized body knows.
Mine. I’m getting inside that and never leaving.
Leah Morgan was raised dripping in money and locked away from the world, hidden by the very family meant to protect her. Until old debts come calling. Now she’ll trade her ivory tower for a dungeon. She’s never been touched. Neither has he. The first time is going to wreck them both. She’s his to feed, his to spoil, his to ruin. But when she slips out of his grip a second time, Allister learns there’s no line a virgin brute won’t cross for his woman
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
Leah
It was a nice little service. My sister's wedding, that is. To her whirlwind new love, Decker. I'm happy.
Right?
Let's go with ambivalent.
You know what else I am?
Horny.
I can't believe I just used that word. I've never felt this before, and I'm not sure how I feel about feeling it now.
But, my God. The man about to climb into the back of this limo with me is causing crazy things to happen down low.
Crazy wonderful.
And crazy wet.
Gah.
Allister.
That's his name. That's a great name.
He's Decker's best man and best friend, and I do my best not to stare as he lowers himself into the back of the limo, leaving the door open behind him.
Allister Marshall fills the available space, side to side, roof to floor. His massive hands come to rest on his thighs, and I'm mesmerized by the veins shifting under the skin, the tendons working, hands that look like they could crush bone.
My gaze drifts as a breath swells his chest, the starched white shirt under his charcoal suit pulling taut across all that muscle.
He looks at me, and I struggle to swallow the golf ball that feels lodged in my throat. This man looks hungry.
For me.
The girl with braces on her legs. The girl who gives in to the wheelchair at night because she can't stand the pain anymore.
Me.
I think this mountain of masculinity wants me.
In some way.
Maybe in the ways I've only read about in my stacks of worn, dovetailed books with wispy, corseted women on the covers. Ways I've never known in real life.
Never felt.
I feel it now, in the dampness between my thighs and the hair prickling at the nape of my neck.
I battle to hold onto the eye contact and lose. My gaze flits and flies, alighting on pieces of him, then landing on some fascinating fleck of dust on the floor.
He looks like something a careless god built to ruin women. His heartbeat seems to thrum in the very air of the car, and mine must be taking its cue, because it's trying to break out of my chest while he sits there, calm, those cut features sharp and yet, intensely relaxed.
A short growth of dark hair covers what used to be a slick, bald head, and I wonder what made him start to grow it out.
Wilson, my driver, shuts the door behind Allister with a click, and the limo dips slightly as he settles into the front seat.
Allister’s nostrils flare slightly as I inspect his face for a blink.
I note the age difference between us in the lines around his eyes, the three across his forehead. Less than ten years between us, I’d guess. That only flutters my heart more. And he's other things besides older.
Experienced.
Controlled.
Impeccable.
The Bentley pulls away, near-silent but I feel it moving.
Why doesn’t he say something? God, this is unbearable. I’m counting my heartbeats as they bang around in my chest.
How can he sit there looking so calm?
"I can't believe my little sister is married." I blurt unable to hide the quiver in my voice.
My face flames as Allister swallows and shifts his hips, and the limo jerks as Wilson works us through traffic toward Decker's guesthouse, where I've been staying ever since the police found me locked and bound in a room in the basement of my family's mansion.
Well. The police were there. The one who actually found me was him.
Allister.
Why do I love that name so much?
"Why can't you believe she's married?" Allister's voice matches the rest of him, a sonic boom that nearly knocks my head into the headrest.
I turn to the window, hunting for an answer that doesn't make me sound like a selfish brat.
I was afraid of him when he came into that room to rescue me. The day still plays on a loop in my dreams. The dark, the bindings, then light pouring in from the doorway, and people everywhere. My first thought: I'm safe. Then Allister, nearly blocking out the light again, and I screamed and pounded him with my fists the second he cut me loose. Not one blow earned a wince.
Not from him. My little cotton-candy fists, banging against the solid lead under his clothes.
I'm lost in the contradiction of it. Just being this close has my breath coming short and hot. But, there’s kindness under all that menace, a golden heart glowing straight through the tailored suit.
And yet he's tied to everything I've lost. He's Decker's best friend.
Decker, who's taken May away from me.
I shake the selfish thought loose. May is happy. Decker is amazing. I'm being a petulant child.
"I don't know." I reach for something honest. "I should be the one taking care of her. Not some stranger she only just met."
His eyes settle on me, and I shrink into the seat. Tiger's eyes, gold bleeding into brown until I can't tell where one ends and the other starts.