Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
“You deserve someone who can give you flowers and poetry,” I say quietly, my thumb tracing across her knuckles. “Someone who’ll hold you like you’re precious instead of . . .” I trail off, unable to finish the thought.
“Instead of what?” she asks, stepping closer, eliminating the space I’d tried to put between us. Her eyes darken with something that looks like interest—or maybe recognition of exactly what I meant.
Instead of taking you like the killer I am. Instead of leaving marks on your skin and shadows in your eyes. Instead of turning you into something as twisted as me.
“Instead of doing what every instinct tells me to do,” I say finally. “You deserve better than what I am.”
“What if I don’t want better?” Her voice carries an edge that makes my blood heat even as it terrifies me. “What if I want exactly what you’re afraid to give me?”
“Then you don’t understand what you’re asking for.” I force myself to step back, breaking the spell of her proximity. “You’re twenty-three years old. You should be falling in love with some nice boy your own age who’ll take you dancing and treat you like a princess. Not standing in a hallway asking a man old enough to be your father to—”
“To what?” she challenges. “To want me? To stop pretending you don’t?”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to find the strength to do what’s right. “You deserve someone who can love you the way you should be loved. Soft and sweet and safe. I don’t know how to be any of those things.”
“Then I don’t need them.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it cuts through me like a blade. “I’d rather have what you can actually give me than some fantasy about what I should want. I want your cock, Blue. Not flowers and sweet compliments.”
“Tomorrow,” I say, forcing myself to step back, to break contact before I lose the ability to think clearly. “Tomorrow is going to be a very long day, and you’re going to need all your strength for what’s coming.”
“You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m afraid of what I’ll turn you into,” I admit. “In one night, I could destroy everything beautiful about you and twist it into something dark and hungry and broken.”
Something shifts in her expression—not hurt anymore, but understanding. She steps forward and places her palm flat against my chest, over my heart.
“What if I’m already broken?” she asks quietly. “What if watching my father die already took away everything soft and sweet and safe about me? What if the person you’re trying to protect is already gone?”
The words land hard, and I know she’s right on some level—I can see it in the way she smiled at Sly’s corpse, in how easily she accepted the promise of more bodies to come.
“Then maybe we’re both already lost,” I say, covering her hand with mine.
For a long moment, we just stand there in the candlelit hallway, her palm pressed against my chest, my hand covering hers. I can feel the warmth of her skin, the slight tremor in her fingers that betrays how affected she is despite her bold words. She’s not backing down, not retreating from what she wants.
“You’re going to make me wait,” she says, and it’s not a question.
“I’m going to try to do the right thing,” I say, though we both know how flimsy that sounds.
Her eyes flash with something between frustration and amusement. “The right thing for who?”
I don’t have an answer for that, and she knows it. She rises up on her toes one more time, her lips brushing against my ear.
“When you’re lying in your bed tonight with your hand on your cock, thinking about what I offered,” she whispers, “remember that I’m just down the hall. And I’d do it better than you can.” Her lips curve into a smile that’s pure temptation. “Goodnight, Blue. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
She slips inside her room and closes the door with a soft click, leaving me standing in the hallway with my blood on fire and my dick throbbing.
I press my palm flat against her door, fighting the urge to follow her inside and finish what she started. My cock will be hard for hours from that kiss, from the way she looked at me like she wanted to devour me whole, from the invitation she offered and the way the girl says exactly what she wants.
I stay there for another minute, listening to the sounds of her moving around inside—the whisper of silk hitting the floor, the soft pad of bare feet on stone. Every sound makes my blood burn hotter.
Tomorrow I’ll see her at breakfast and pretend I’m not thinking about backing her against the nearest wall. Pretend I’m not already planning which Crow to hunt down next, how to capture them alive and deliver them to her like some twisted courtship offering. Pretend I can’t still taste her on my lips or feel the phantom heat of her fingers trailing down my chest.