Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
She tore open the suture packet with her teeth.
Under normal circumstances, that shouldn't have been sexy.
But fuck, it was.
My little kitten was a bit of a savage.
I knew she had a primal side, but I had been sure it only came out when she was backed into a corner, or she was pinned under me.
This was new, and I'd have to find a way to bring it out of her that didn't require a bullet. Maybe a shallow stabbing would suffice?
Alina worked methodically, gloved hands preparing my wound, cleaning it, and removing any stray debris with the tweezers.
Her touch was surprisingly gentle, a lot better than Kostya's heavy-handed butterfingers.
"Do you want something for the pain?" she asked, eyeing a bottle of morphine.
"No, I want to stay clearheaded."
She met my gaze in the mirror and nodded. Then she touched the wound, and a flash of pain blinded me for a second as I sucked a breath in through my teeth.
"Maybe just an aspirin," I said and reached for the bottle.
"No, aspirin will thin your blood and make it harder to clot. You already lost too much."
"Careful, someone might think you care."
She met my eyes in the mirror again and raised her eyebrow at me.
"Someone has to pay for my grandmother's fancy new place."
Why was her attitude so fucking hot?
"Ready?"
This time, I gave her a nod and braced myself.
She slowly and precisely began stitching my flesh closed. Her small hands were so delicate, so dainty that I barely felt the stitch or even the pull of the thread through my skin.
The pressure of the fingers splayed on my back, the soft whoosh of her breath against my skin, were far more noticeable than the bite of the needle.
My skin was oversensitive, but not for the needle. For her.
"Where did you learn how to do this?" I couldn’t imagine where she would have picked up this particular skill set.
She sighed, her eyes closing for a moment before she reopened them and focused on my back.
"My grandmother. When her dementia got really bad, she started falling. There wasn't any money for frequent emergency room trips, so I watched hundreds of YouTube videos and learned how to care for her myself."
Fuck.
I had not expected that.
I thought she was going to tell me she thought about being pre-med or binge-watched some medical drama. Hell, I almost expected a little hint of her fire with a quip about me keeping her locked away so she'd been practicing on the guards.
I didn't expect heart-wrenching honesty.
She really was an incredible woman.
Too bad she hated my guts.
Not for the first time, I wished we had met under different circumstances. One where I could take my time, woo her with affection, attention, and then teach her to love the chase as much as I did.
Or anything where I had the luxury of time.
When she was finished, she tied off the sutures.
"I need to clean up," I said as she reached for a bandage.
Her hand stopped just over the bandage, hovering there for a moment, and I stared at it, wishing she would lay it back on my skin.
Instead, she pulled her hand away and nodded.
"When you are done, I will bandage the stitches."
Then she was gone.
I quickly washed at the sink and followed her out of the door, needing to know where she was.
When I joined her in the dining room, she already had dinner set up.
The shift from the bathroom's intimacy to the dining room's formality was jarring. Here, with proper place settings and polite distance between us, the moment we'd shared seemed almost like a dream.
The mood felt strange—tense, yet… intimate.
I opened my mouth maybe a dozen times to say something as she picked at her pasta.
I just didn't know what to say. How did I start a genuine conversation that wouldn't remind her what I was, and what led her here?
How did I show her I may be a monster, but there was more to me than blood, knives, and bleeding wounds?
Tomorrow, we'd be married.
Alina would be my wife, and I didn't know how to speak to her.
I should tell her that these past few weeks had been some of the best of my life.
That coming home to her was the highlight of my day, every day. I should tell her I'd begun craving her company, and I'd do anything in my power to make her happy.
I should've said something to show her I may be a monster, but I was her monster.
That I had become obsessed with earning one of her elusive smiles.
That the idea of her carrying my child, of capturing even a piece of what my brothers and cousins had, filled me with something unfamiliar.
Hope.
It was strange and uncomfortable at first, but I had grown accustomed to it, and now I was afraid I'd miss it if it disappeared.