Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 44899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
I downed my drink, welcoming the burn. “You don’t seem like the drifter type.”
“I wasn’t. Until prison.” He set his glass down precisely, lining it up with the others. “Few years inside changes your relationship with stability.”
“And the guy with the fractured skull?” I leaned closer, deciding to deliver my own questions.
His lips quirked. “He deserved worse.”
“For?”
“Setting me up. I took the fall for the way he handled his disagreements.” Sully’s voice remained even, but I caught the flash of old rage in his eyes. “When I confronted him, he laughed. Said no one would believe an ex-con over him.”
“So you made sure he couldn’t testify.”
He shook his head, shrugging with a grin. “I made sure he remembered me. Cost me another five years, but watching him piss himself when I came at him was almost worth it.”
I studied him, seeing him with new clarity. Not just precise and controlled, but dangerous when pushed past his limits. I liked that combination more than I should.
“Your turn,” he said. “Why the chaos? What do you get out of it?”
Our hands rested inches apart on the bar. I slid mine closer until our fingers touched. “Maybe I just like to watch people reveal who they really are when the script gets thrown away.”
“And who are you, Darby?” His fingers tangled with mine, though neither of us acknowledged it. His touch, skin to skin, was electric.
“Trouble,” I said honestly. “The kind you should run from.”
“Never been one to run from trouble.”
The bar had emptied around us, just the bartender and one lingering couple in the corner. Sully’s face was half in shadow, the scar along his jaw more pronounced in the dim light. I found myself wanting to trace it with my fingertips. Then my tongue.
I leaned in close, close enough to feel his breath warm against my cheek. My lips brushed his ear as I whispered, “I’ve got a room. ‘Bout three blocks away. If you’re interested in making some trouble together.”
I felt rather than heard his sharp intake of breath. When I pulled back, his eyes had darkened, pupils wide. The careful control was still there, but strained now, like a dam with hairline fractures.
He threw cash on the bar, enough to cover our drinks and then some, without ever taking his eyes off me.
“Lead the way,” he said, echoing my words from earlier.
As we stood, he rested his hand at the small of my back again, fingers splayed wider this time, more possessive. I let myself lean into the touch, just slightly. We walked quickly out into the Nashville night, the distance to my hotel room suddenly feeling like miles of unbearable anticipation.
We hardly made it through the door of my hotel room before the restraint between us shattered. Sully’s self-control seemed to degrade every second it took to get us inside and the door shut and locked. Once inside the room, Sully gripped my waist, spinning me around and pressing my back against the wall.
His mouth claimed mine with a hunger that matched the fire that had been building in my veins all night, all teeth and tongue and desperation. I bit his lower lip hard enough I was afraid I’d drawn blood, a warning and an invitation wrapped in one. He didn’t pull back. Instead, he groaned and pressed closer, pinning me between the solid wall and his hard, muscular body.
He shrugged out of his vest, and I tugged his T-shirt up and over his head, exposing skin marked with battle scars and tattoos. I raked down his chest, my nails leaving thin red lines in their wake. He hissed but didn’t stop me. Instead, he worked my jacket off my shoulders, and it fell to the floor.
“Been thinking about this since I saw you at the bar,” he muttered against my neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin beneath my ear.
“Less talking,” I demanded, grabbing his hair and pulling his mouth back to mine.
There was need in our touches, an almost violent kind of need. My shirt joined his on the floor, followed quickly by my bra. When his mouth closed around my nipple, I arched against him, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan escaping my lips. His hands were everywhere, rough palms against soft skin while his fingers dug into my hips hard enough to bruise. Good. I wanted the marks. Wanted evidence this had happened after he was gone because I knew in my heart I’d never have another man like Sully.
I pushed away from the wall, walking him backward toward the bed. The backs of his knees hit the mattress, and I shoved him down, climbing on top to straddle him. The power dynamic shifted, fluid and dangerous. I rolled my hips against him, still half-clothed but feeling his hardening cock through the denim.