Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
“I can’t lose them, Aleksei,” I told him, sounding just as panicked as I was, which was to say, a whole lot of panic. “They’re all I have.”
The purple glow was not as fierce as it was when I was in danger, and after he’d transformed back to human, and he was ticked.
But that glow lit in his eyes now, and it was both wonderous and frightening.
“We will discuss your parents later, not as late as you’d like, far from it, Laura. I’m warning you. I will know how they scarred you.”
With that glow in his eyes, I had no choice but to placate him.
“All right.”
“And your friends are no longer all you have,” he bit off.
Oh dear.
He was right.
Crap.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I promised.
He ignored that and declared, “If they love you, not one of them will balk at the injection after what happened to you tonight. They’ll be eager to be cleared, so they can be done with it and get to you.”
He was right again (I hoped).
I just hated that they had to be put through it.
He returned his hands to the sides of my head, pulled me in to kiss one cheek, the other, and then my nose (I was finding there were times where his sweet could be inconvenient, this being one of them, when I was still smarting from our fight, and I’d just lost in an important discussion).
He released me and said, “Go. Up the stairs, my room is the only room on the upper level. Hit the bathroom. Clean up. It’s going to be a long night, and I have comms to make.”
“I should probably get back to my cats,” I told him.
He did a slow blink, ending it studying me like I’d grown a third eye.
“If you send a team to my place, it’s going to freak them out,” I explained.
“I’ll handle it.”
“You can’t handle it. Jupiter is—”
“Darling,” he sighed. Massively. “Please, go clean up.”
I huffed, slid off his lap and decided to revisit this discussion after he had time to make a few comms. He had to have a ton on his mind, so he needed to check on things and probably issue a bunch of orders.
I found the floating tread, switchback staircase next to a long dining room table that seated twelve and sat perpendicular to the kitchen.
The stairs led to a large landing and enormous double doors, both open, that led to his bedroom.
I got the sense the lower level of his penthouse took up the entire floor of the building, but the upper level was half of that (the other half was the landing bay).
Which meant his bedroom was colossal.
Therefore, obviously, I was impressed with its sheer size, but downright stunned at how ginormous his hover bed was.
And the nuanced change in décor (this was silvers, with hints of black, gray, purple topaz and some sky blue) was masculine, attractive, yet somehow inviting and even…homey.
I could design in this room.
I could laze here for weeks, reading, watching vids…
Cuddling with and making love to my mate.
Ahem.
Moving on.
There were a number of doors that led from the sleeping space, and it took to door number three to find the bathroom.
(For your information: the first door led to a library/small office stuffed full of books that I would absolutely explore at a time when my world hadn’t just exploded; the second, a deeply masculine closet that smelled like leather, pepper and cinders, Aleksei’s scent that was so a part of him, I hadn’t noticed it until I scented it without him there.)
His bathroom was mammoth as well (yep, matte black tile abounded, with silver towels and chrome fixtures) and gave more credence to the fact he was into vintage, because he not only had a bath pod, he also had an actual bathtub and a real shower that could easily fit two, and it sported a dizzying array of shower heads.
I squeaked just a little when I saw myself in the mirror.
The brilliant cosme-mask setting I’d selected of cocktail party, nighttime, drama, playful, sophisticated was now a disaster.
My mascara coated my eyelids, and there were a few smears at the sides of my eyes, but Aleksei had cleaned some of the mess of that. My cheeks were high pink, and my eyes were already swelling from crying.
I should have gone waterproof, but how was I to know all that would befall me that night?
I doubted he had a cosme-mask or a spa-visor to help me out, so I did what I could with an old-fashioned washcloth.
Once I wrapped the cloth over the edge of the sink, I took in a huge breath and returned to the mirror.
I lifted a hand to my chest.
Tears threatened again, so I closed my eyes and pressed into my own flesh.
“You’re not gone,” I whispered.