Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 161434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 807(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 807(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
His fingers dip under my chin, urging me up to a beautiful doom.
It’s in those eyes. They glow like soft green stars, intense and urgent, asking a silent question—or is it a demand?
What will you do, Miss Halle? I hear him saying in my head. What will you do if I take that mouth right here? Right now?
My toes scrunch up in my shoes. Our movement slows, our eyes lock, our breaths turn heavy.
And when his gorgeous face sweeps down, so ready to devour me, I don’t even have a prayer.
Our lips collide like they’re opening a portal to another world, hot and wet and wild.
He tastes as good as he looks.
He deepens his kiss, drinking me in with a muffled groan.
He swipes his tongue in my mouth, chasing me, swinging between a litany of teases and filthy, claiming strokes.
The nip of teeth against my bottom lip makes me squeak—but holy flipping bossman, I don’t care.
All the tension that’s been choking us for months—all the magnetism since the day he truly met me as a woman at that office pizza party—boils up my throat and into my fingers.
I’m clinging to him, moaning, soaked and wanting and too stunned for words. He gives back a guttural noise that’s too much like the sound I imagine he’d make inside me.
Insanity, it’s nice to meet you—and that’s a big fat problem.
I can’t fathom what happens next. I don’t want to. I just know one thing.
If this is my first and only chance to kiss Nicholas Brandt, I will make it count. I press my lips tighter to his, pulling another hot groan from him as his nip becomes a bite.
Ten dumbstruck seconds must go by before we tear ourselves away for air.
“Nick...” I whisper.
But before I can force out anything else—let alone my concerns—wet gold explodes in his face, barely missing mine. Huh?
Cold beads dribble down my bare arms as he wheels me around, the entire universe grinding to a stop.
Holy crap.
I step back.
There’s a faint tingling sound followed by shrill glass crashing against the marble floor, fierce and deliberate. My eyes pinch shut as I jump at the noise.
The room goes funeral silent.
The live band drones on, but you could hear a mouse skittering across the floor.
I’m not sure I want to know what that mystery liquid is, but it smells...boozy?
“Nick? Are you okay?” I force out, opening my eyes.
“I’m fine.” His voice is tight, clipped.
A series of bright flashes stun my eyes. A murmur rolls through the crowd. I stumble back, blinking.
Once I’ve opened my eyes again and readjusted to the light, I realize we’re in a circle.
Dead center.
Nobody’s dancing now. The room has stopped. Lifeless.
They’ve formed a peanut gallery around us, and I’m part of the show.
Correction: make that total shit show.
One look at the blonde in her skintight red dress, perched between Nick and me like she’ll claw both our throats out, tells me that.
“Sorry, sweetie,” she croons, shoving a flat hand against my shoulder and rocking me back with the grace of an angry rhino. “But do you mind giving us some space?”
Almost two decades of abusive, short-tempered fake families whip through my head.
When you’re an orphan, you know what it’s like to be pushed.
A few times, it was the parents throwing us around. Sometimes it was other foster kids. Usually, it was both.
I’ve never had it easy and I’m used to defending myself. Even if I’m in a room full of stunned rich people, taking abuse isn’t what I do.
My hand closes around the petite, bright-red fingers hovering above my shoulder. I’m about to power slam this bitch to the floor when I remember where I am at the very last second.
I let go, reluctantly, with a parting scratch of my nails on her wrist.
“Of course,” I snap. “Have at it.”
“Reese, no. You don’t need to...” Nick trails off, lost for words, his face set like an angry god.
I’m so flipping lost.
I meet his gaze, then trace my eyes back to the tall, beautiful blond warrior-girl. What happens takes a fraction of a second.
There’s a resounding smack like lightning snapping off a branch.
She slaps Nick so hard his face turns.
Half of his face comes back scarlet-red when he twists his neck.
“Shit, that hurt...” Blond Death moves her hand away, shaking it out.
“What the hell?” I whisper to myself, though I already have a terrible inkling what this is all about.
Nick Brandt is no angel.
I’m sure there’s a broken heart or ten behind that hellfire blow—and it’s a story I’m not sure I want to know—especially not after he just kissed my soul from my body.
She ignores me as I stagger back, giving them more space, but I hover in earshot.
“Did you bring that little bimbo here to humiliate me, Nicholas?” she hisses.
“I didn’t know anything could ever humiliate you, Carmen,” he says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants, aloof and ice-cold.