Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 48854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 244(@200wpm)___ 195(@250wpm)___ 163(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 244(@200wpm)___ 195(@250wpm)___ 163(@300wpm)
“Don’t hide,” I whisper along her mouth, inhaling the scent of her beauty. It’s as if her perfection has a life of its own. It’s an entity. It’s gripped me, and I doubt it’s going to let me go anytime soon.
“I never hide,” she responds with a murmur and I lean in to feather my lips against hers. “Should you be doing this?”
“Probably not,” I tell her honestly, my tone taking on a husky rumble, and I don’t hide it. The notion of doing this with anyone else is ridiculous. I’m not sure who this beauty is, but I’m addicted without ever having a taste. “But rules are meant to be broken.”
“Rules are there to be obeyed.”
Curiosity burns through me then. “Do you obey every rule?”
The corner of her mouth quirks. It’s not a smile, but it’s still as alluring as if she had given me the brightest of grins. “If I don’t, they’ll bury me six feet under.”
My chest tightens at the thought. My heart bangs against my ribs, and my mind, it tells me to steal her away and take her with me. Whoever she is, she’ll be safe with me.
But will she?
I can’t deny I’m not a good person. And as my life takes me deeper into the clan, I’ll take over from my father and I’ll do things worse than I’ve done before. So perhaps she won’t be safe with me. Maybe she’ll find some gentleman to marry her, give her a white picket fence, and allow her the fairy-tale ending all girls want.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asks suddenly, surprising me with her candor.
I can’t help but smile. “Perhaps.”
Her lips turn to a pout and her cheeks darken with a soft pink. “I’ve never done that before.” Her admission makes my body ache to have more. I want her to tell me all her secrets. Everything she keeps to herself, those things she thinks about late at night while the moon is high and the stars dance in the inky blackness. That’s what I want to know.
“You shouldn’t be so bold and ask strangers to kiss you,” I tell her.
“What if I have never been kissed? What if tomorrow I’m married off to someone I don’t love and I would never have experienced a first kiss that I truly wanted?”
Another confession that makes my body react, but this time, it’s with rage. She’s too young to be thinking about getting married. She’s far too fucking young to even consider this as an option.
I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t do this.
But I’ve never been a good person.
So I do lean in and steal her lips with mine. The softness of her molds to my hard contours. I claim a whimper that tries to escape her lips and revel in the sounds she makes as her hands snake around my neck. She holds on to me as if I’ve hung the stars in the sky for her. And for the first time in my life, I wish I were good enough to deserve someone so sweet, so pure, and so damn innocent.
When I finally break the kiss, I find her swollen lips still slightly parted. Her breaths come in short spurts. And her pupils are dilated with desire, her eyelids hooded with need. She’s like a blooming rose, opening petal by petal, and I want nothing more than to wrap my hand around her and squeeze.
“I should never have done that,” I tell her, my own voice taking on a husky tone. “You’re too good for me.”
A small smile dances on her mouth. “Most men are,” she sasses before she steps back and presses her fingertips to her plump, shimmering lips.
The sounds from the party are more prominent now. It’s as if the more alcohol that’s doled out, the louder they get. I’m sure Romano and Gian are enjoying themselves, or they would have made an effort to find me already.
The illumination from the moon dims, and we both glance up to stare at the cloud that slowly drifts across the sky. The darkness changes the air around us, and my gut churns with knowing. It’s a sixth sense that seems to play games with me when it wants to. Something bad is about to happen.
Since I was little, I could do it. My father thought I was cursed. He sent me to doctors. I was tested time and again, but the moment he brought me into the clan, that trait dissipated. I haven’t had a premonition or feeling in a long time. But right now, it’s snaking through me like a poison.
“What is your name, pretty star?” I ask the girl, realizing I have no clue who she is. There are so many clans in the city, most of them loyal to the Montesano, but there are a handful who follow Vitale as if he were a god.