Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
When Ark’s hand suddenly moves for my face, the urge to break our stare down is strong, but I don’t want to shatter the moment. Instead, I let the tension that has reached a boiling point hold back my wish to flinch.
It isn’t a fight I win easily, but a victory, nonetheless.
Ark shifts his eyes between mine as if he can sense my struggle not to pull back as he says, “You have a… There’s…” He cusses before he tucks a wayward wisp of hair behind my ear.
I anticipate for his hand to immediately return to his side of the car, so you can imagine my surprise when he tracks the back of his index finger down my cheek. His touch is as basic as it comes but electrifying. It steals my thoughts as ruefully as it clears my stomach of nerves.
They don’t leave my body.
They flutter low—extremely low.
I can’t think while returning his stare. Can’t move. I can barely breathe, and I’m not the only one noticing.
“Breathe, Mara.” Ark smirks when my lungs instantly obey his snapped command. “Good girl.”
Tingles race across my face when he lowers his hand to my mouth so he can drag his thumb over my top lip. The tension is potent enough to amplify every small movement, shift, and breath.
I should be pulling away. He is an owner on my cleaning ledger and, at a guess, a decade older than me, but for the life of me, I can’t. I’m frozen in place with desire and praying like hell I’m about to experience my first true kiss.
The heat turns so excruciating that I am seconds from making a fool of myself.
I’m about to initiate an embrace instead of running from one.
Ark saves me from the shame of rejection. “Who did this to you? Who hurt you so badly that you can’t speak without stuttering?”
“Wh-what?”
His fingers remain unfurled, even with the danger flaring through his eyes announcing he is far from composed.
“Who hurt you?” After locking his eyes with mine, he bounces them back and forth, his anger picking up. “He is the reason you stutter, isn’t he?”
“N-no,” I lie.
Another denial sits on the tip of my tongue when he expresses his dislike of my lie with a growl, but I can’t set it free. Nothing comes out but needy breaths. My shock is too high that a stranger cares about me more than my father did when I told him what was happening during my numerous speech therapy sessions.
“Tell me,” Ark urges, his composure modeling nurturing if you can look past the murderous undertone in his voice.
His name sits in the back of my throat, but before I can spit it out, the driver announces we’ve reached our destination, which snaps me out of the bubble Ark’s protectiveness placed me in.
If only his sorrowed watch could move my legs just as fast.
As Darius’s steely eyes bounce between Ark and me, his confusion growing, he asks, “Shall I circle the block?”
“No,” I shout a little too loudly, my mouth finally cooperating with the prompts of my brain. “Here is f-fine.” I unlatch my belt and sling it off, my hands as shaky as my vocal cords. “Thank you for the ride. I won’t take any m-more of your time.”
I stumble out of the car less gracefully than I entered it. It doesn’t go unnoticed. We’re not surrounded by the glitz and glamor of the Chrysler building, but the people milling on the sidewalk know Ark’s ride and the man inside are far too flashy for both this side of Myasnikov and me.
4
ARKADIY
Rafael peers at me when I throw down the umpteenth manila folder this morning so I can drag my hand through my hair. The internal clock I’m striving to ignore ticks louder with each passing second, reminding me of what is meant to be the true purpose of my visit to Myasnikov.
I am supposed to be finding a wife, not mulling over the possible shady childhood of a woman I hardly know.
I’ve barely slept a wink in the past three nights. The last time my sleep was this lacking was the weekend before I took a placement in the upper house. Fyodor wanted me to “scratch the itch” rigorously enough to keep my hookups out of the tabloids for six months.
I wasn’t featured in almost four weeks.
That was a record within itself. Fyodor, however, wasn’t impressed.
Sex is how I blow off steam, but that crutch won’t cut it this time around, so I haven’t tried. Interacting with women on paper is tedious, and I am too close to the end of my rope to pretend it isn’t.
It isn’t solely unearthing the cause of Mara’s stutter keeping me awake, but also my inability to defuse the ruse Rafael orchestrated directly in front of me.
I took his bait lock, stock, and barrel, and he’s been acting like a smug prick ever since.