Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 53212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 266(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 266(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Every minute—every fucking second—the pressure in my chest grows heavier. It isn’t desire alone. It’s overwhelming need. And it’s sharp and constant and feels like something pressing against every cell inside my body.
Just last month, I was a man with his own boundaries. His own decisions. His own rules. Now, it feels like something is leaning on me from the inside, testing every single thing I thought I knew. Like my body and mind and cold heart are trying to morph into a vessel for something that is far greater than me.
Even this morning, getting out of the truck to grab her forgotten can wasn’t a choice. It was a pull. One I didn’t bother fighting because I didn’t think it mattered.
And fuck, the pull is only growing stronger now. The need to just be close to her is fucking with my head.
To make things worse, I can smell him here—feel his intentions in the wood of the siding and the pores of the concrete beneath us—and every destructive part of me begs to be unleashed. To hunt him. To kill him. To burn the entire damn roster of the Fighting Fangs alive if I have to.
Because if I can feel him like this, that means he was here last night.
This morning, maybe.
That means he’s getting desperate enough to take chances, and when a man like Holland Thorne is cornered—his whole spoon-fed life on the line—he’ll do dangerous things.
Why? Why can’t he look me in the eye?
The thought cuts through the noise like it doesn’t belong to me.
It’s like there’s a wall between us, and if I could just chip away at the top few bricks, I’d be able to see him better.
I stiffen.
Those thoughts aren’t mine. But they’re sliding through my mind slowly, unfamiliar in texture and weighted with emotion that doesn’t originate in my body. And yet, somehow, they feel far more personal than those I hear in visions or from other people’s minds when they willingly open them up to me.
Why do I want him to look at me so badly? Why do I want him to favor me? To be soft with me? Why does it bother me so much that Rook Slater hates me? Why—
Realization overwhelms me in a jolt, and I startle, my eyes jumping to Kylie’s ocean-blue gaze and holding. I’m hearing her. Her thoughts, her worries, her insecurities about me…
Fuck. I shouldn’t be able to do this. I don’t know why I can do this. Yes, you fucking do. You know exactly why, my own mind screams at me.
Though, Kylie’s thoughts practically overpower it. I just don’t get why he hates me so much.
This feels wrong. And way too invasive.
I clear my throat, struggling to block out any and all other thoughts while simultaneously setting her mind at ease. To somehow, without exposing myself to a total surrender of control, convey that I don’t hate her. “Kylie, I’m…sorry. For the way I am with you. It’s not…personal. Really. I find you…quite tolerable.”
“Quite tolerable?” Her giggle shocks me. “Well, thanks, Rook,” she says, now smiling at me. “I think you’re pretty tolerable too. Especially when you’re saving me from trash purgatory for another week and fixing my flats in the dark, cold, late night. The past twenty-four hours are really advancing your bid for the knight in shining armor position in my life.”
The corner of my mouth lifts before I can stop it.
And the ache in my chest eases just a bit.
“I should get back to my route,” I say, even though every part of me wants to stay exactly where I am.
“Of course,” she says, bouncing to ward off the cold, while a blush steals the peach of her cheeks and replaces it with red. “I have to get to work too.”
“Bye, Kylie,” I allow myself to say, the satisfaction of her name on my tongue giving temporary aid to my ongoing chest pain.
“Goodbye, Rook.”
She backs into her garage, and I turn to make the lonely walk back to my truck. When I climb inside, the garage door has closed, and the pain is back with full force. If vampires were susceptible to heart attacks, I surely would’ve already kicked the bucket.
I grit my teeth against the urge to sit there—to escort her to work, to the rink, and back home again like some kind of guard dog she never asked for—and force my attention forward.
I know where that road leads. I know the fight waiting at the end of it. And I know the danger it puts her in, the danger it puts my brothers in.
I know the fallout won’t just stop with me.
If I give in to what’s pulling me—if I stop pushing back against the current between us—everything changes.
But the truth I keep circling is simpler than all of that.