Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
He cut that shit off by rolling his pelvis, the hard, hard length of him pushing against her core, stroking her sex through her jeans. As she gasped, he closed the distance, sealing his mouth to hers, and when she moaned, he swallowed the desperate sound. The more he kissed her, entering her with his tongue, he could feel her loosen up and go with it, her fingers tangling in his hair, urging him to keep it up, go even harder.
Take all of her.
Everything about her was so vivid that he had to close his eyes, as if to cut the glare. Bad idea. Not seeing the corner of the pillow she was on or the blank wall behind the cheap headboard or anything about where he was in familiar surroundings… meant his only grounding in the void was her.
Shit got way too intense, way too fast. From those soft lips to the way her body fit against him to how his blood started to pound…
Dev pulled back sharply and popped his lids wide.
This was just supposed to be fucking, he told himself. This was biology, not romance, for fuck’s sake—
Her mismatched, luminous, punch-in-the-gut eyes opened. And the worry that came over her face was accompanied by her loosening the grip she’d taken on the hair at his nape.
“Is something wrong?” she whispered.
Shaking his head, he intended to lie to her. Tell her that he was a good guy just making super sure she was cool with them banging. Maybe murmur some bullshit that she was just so beautiful, and a great kisser, and yada, yada, yada—which was all true, but not what he was thinking about.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said grimly.
Her eyes searched his face. “The same is true on my side.”
“I know.” Then he added, “We’re strangers.”
And see? he told his conscience. Tit for tat with the withholding, s’all good. The seesaw of secrets was even, so he needed to stop being a little bitch.
“Let’s just be here,” he said roughly. “And then we go our separate ways.”
She stroked his face, her fingertips lingering on his jaw. “Yes, that’s all we need to do.”
He told himself to be relieved as he lowered his mouth once again, but somehow, that shit didn’t really stick—
A cell phone ringing was like a bomb going off, both of them jerking their heads to the dresser where he’d put her parka and scarf.
Who is calling her, he wondered.
He probably should thank them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
L.W. arrived at his sire’s Audience House, re-forming around the back by the kitchen entrance. Everything was plowed and shoveled on the property, not just at the main building, but over at Four Toys HQ, Vishous’s satellite barn of IT brainiacs. It had been a long time since he’d been out here—had it been fall? maybe the end of summer—and he measured all the snow.
Goddamn, he’d hated coming to this place.
It was a reminder of the lie he’d been expected to carry on his own wherever he went for thirty fucking years. He’d been the only one of his generation to know the truth, that his father had died and been replaced with a chimera. And while he’d been on the sidelines, watching all the other young yuck it up with their pops, he’d been expected to keep his mourning to himself.
Couldn’t fuck the ruse. And the real biter of it all? The whole thing had been to save the throne for him: Rahvyn had projected an image of the great Blind King in front of the civilians, L.W.’s mahmen made all the decisions as Queen, and everybody had held the reins with the expectation that he’d drop his ass in Daddy’s old chair when he was mature enough.
No one had asked him what he’d wanted, and he’d grown up in the stew of grief that had been projected onto him, the Brothers, the fighters, and their mates always looking at him like he was some kind of antidote to his father’s death.
Not as him as his own person.
He’d been over being a holy grail to catch their metaphorical tears as soon as he’d been aware of his purpose in their lives. But everywhere he went, there it was, as unrelenting as the color of his hair and his eyes and the bone structure of his face—which, given what had shown up the other week, back from the dead, was also because he was a “dead” ringer for the one they’d all lost.
Put like that, going after Lash was a way of ahvenging himself.
And he was running out of time.
Jacking his leathers up, he did a quick double-check under his jacket. Both his guns were holstered at his ribs, his steel daggers were across his chest, and his waist belt was locked on with another set of nine millimeters as well as a lineup of ammo across the small of his back. With the inventory over, he approached that back door, the one that was always mounted with a seasonal wreath to hide the camera lens.