Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
“I never said—”
“Are you done?” I moved away. “If you are, I’m leaving.”
“Char— Fuck’s sake!” Snarling, he grasped my hips—pulling me slowly, but firmly down on his cock.
I winced, the tiniest grunt escaping me. Ronin was just so big. The man filled me to bursting, and then some.
Ronin started pumping—first slowly, then quickly devolving into a wild, animalistic pace that squeezed grunt after grunt out of me, but nothing else.
I wouldn’t moan for him. I wouldn’t scream. Making a creature your pet and taming it were two different things.
My brows popped as a wet finger pushed past my puckered entrance. I opened my mouth to tell him to cut it out when I remembered the day I did much the same—shoving my finger up his ass to piss him off and make him get rid of me.
I wanted to believe that Ronin was the toxic one, but my need to give as good as I got was dragging me down along with him. Would the old me have manipulated five women eager to get out from their misogynistic fathers’ thumb by putting in their heads that they should pressure a guy into marriage? Would the old me have traded my blood and my body to a vampire tortured by hunger in exchange for him being my personal bodyguard? Wasn’t it true that a small, secret part of me liked that Santino slobbered and nipped at my heels like a... pet?
The thought rocked me to the core. No wonder Ronin’s so determined to have me. It’s because he found his soulmate.
“Agh!” Ronin grunted, spilling inside of me.
I kicked him off and scrambled off the bed, taking a throw blanket with me.
“Wait,” he called. “You haven’t come yet. At least let me—”
Pushing into the bathroom, I shut the door and climbed into the shower—washing his corruptive, addictive touch away.
There was nothing more for Ronin and me to say to each other.
“AHAHAH! HAHAHA! HA!”
I held the phone away from my ear, sighing deeply.
“Hahaha!” Lucifer guffawed, legitimately sounding like he was busting a gut on the other end of the phone. “Oh, sweet Charlotte, I do so enjoy you. Goodbye.”
Click.
I flashed Ronin a mirthless smile as we entered the mess hall. “Luce says he’ll think about it.”
Ronin’s eyes narrowed. He heard Lucifer’s response just as well as I did. Even if that raucous laughter was translated into words, those words wouldn’t be I’ll think about handing you the keys to my kingdom in exchange for the hallows.
Dora trailed behind us—dancing and skipping along to music only she could hear.
I veered right toward the kitchen.
“No,” Ronin said. “Come with me.”
Confused, I hesitated, but Dora didn’t—marching right after him like he was the mama to her duck. I ended up following behind just to keep an eye on her.
Ronin parted the crowd like a hot knife through butter. That morning, he forewent his usual leather on black on leather, and dressed in a soft, blue cashmere sweater that should’ve clashed with his ruby eyes, but instead made them impossible not to look at. His pants clung to him in all the right ways from hugging his shapely bottom, to doing nothing to hide the bulge in the front.
As always, he looked like he just stepped off the runway, but while everyone was looking at him, he just kept looking back at me.
I frowned the fifth time he glanced over his shoulder as if to check I was still following him. What’s with him? He’s been strange all morning.
That morning, I woke in Ronin’s bed after getting out of the shower and walking right past him out of my bedroom door.
Dora was fast asleep under Ronin’s sheets, and since I wasn’t going anywhere without her, I just climbed in and drifted off.
When I woke up, Dora was dressed and sitting by the fireplace, sipping on a mug of hot cocoa while she flipped through the journals Mother sent.
“Dora?” I called. “Where’d you get that drink?”
She perked up. “Ooh, Berneice, you’re up!” Setting down the book and the mug, she raced over to me and planted herself beside the bed. I goggled at her as she broke into a jig—kicking her feet, jumping up and down, waving her arms, and making insane faces at me at seven o’clock in the morning.
“Dora, are you okay?” I cried. “What’s wrong with you?”
She stopped, a slight pout stealing over her face as she planted her hands on her lips. She leaned over and stuck her face in mine, making me squeak as she studied me.
Just as suddenly she popped up and tore into the other room. “Sorry, Ro-Ro. It didn’t work.”
I glared at the back of his head as I obsessed over what happened that morning all over again. Neither one of them would explain Dora’s sudden fit of insanity. Her because she forgot the reason. Ronin because he wouldn’t give a straight answer even if you paid him.