Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Syn moved past him, luggage in one hand, keys in the other.
Furi leapt back into his path.
“Please,” he said, not caring he was begging. “Please, don’t go.”
Syn stopped.
They were close enough that Furi could see the pulse working in his jaw, the redness at the edges of his eyes. But Syn wouldn’t face him. His gaze landed everywhere except on his.
“I need some space,” Syn mumbled, his voice flat and defeated. “Time to think.”
“We need to talk about this.” Furi planted himself more firmly between Syn and the door. “We can work this out.”
Syn shook his head. “Move, Furi.”
“No.”
Syn’s eyes snapped up then and Furi saw everything. The betrayal. The humiliation. The rage.
“Don’t make me push past you,” he said quietly.
Furi reached for him anyway, closing both hands around Syn’s shoulders. “Corbin.”
Syn’s body went rigid. “Don’t,” he warned.
Furi held on. “Please don’t go. Let’s just breathe for a second, then sit down and talk rationally.”
Syn shrugged him off. Not violently, or hard…but enough to make him drop his hands.
The tears welled before he could stop them. He blinked them back, jaw tight, throat burning. “You’re gonna leave me because of this?” he asked. “For trying to help you?”
Syn’s face twisted. “Don’t do that.”
“Answer me.”
Syn let out a harsh breath. “I just need some time, Furi.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
“Corbin, please.”
Syn’s gaze found his, and the fire there changed into something rawer. Painfully depleted. Not work-tired. Soul-tired.
“I can’t stay in this house right now.” He closed his eyes, frown lines marring his forehead. “I just need some space.”
“Okay, okay, I understand. I’ll sleep in the den, I won’t hound you, I promise. I’ll give you space,” Furi scrambled.
He was for sure begging now— there was nothing elegant or pretty about it. But he couldn’t just stand there and watch the best thing in his life, his entire world, walk out of the door.
Syn picked up the luggage. “Let me go.”
Furi wanted to drop to his knees and wrap his arms around Syn’s legs. Wanted to say every desperate thing clawing at his throat—I love you. I’m sorry. I was stupid. I was wrong. Don’t leave me here alone.
But Syn had asked Furi to let him go, and like it or not, Furi had already taken too much choice from him…so he moved.
Syn stepped around him and opened the door.
Furi turned, watching him cross the short distance down the driveway.
Syn’s shoulders were straight, his strides determined.
He stood there until Syn closed himself inside his truck and started the engine.
He watched him back out and drive away. Furi waited, holding his breath for the brake lights to illuminate, then reverse.
It never happened.
Furi slid down the wall, shoulders hunched forward, as all the air left him in one broken rush.
“Fuck!” he hollered.
He banged his elbow repeatedly into the wall behind him until pain shot up his arm.
“Goddammit!”
He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes until sparks flashed behind his lids. His head beat so hard he could barely think. Every sharp breath was laced like panic.
He didn’t know how long he sat there.
A few minutes…an hour, he didn’t know, before he yanked his phone out of his pocket with shaking fingers and stabbed at the contact.
Ro picked up on the first ring.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
The sound of his voice, gentle and braced for bad news, broke the last thin thread Furi had been hanging from.
He tried to answer but a harsh, tortured breath pushed through first.
“Furi, talk to me,” Ro said.
Furi hunched forward, one hand gripping the phone, the other pressed to his mouth as a sob tore through him.
“He left,” Furi choked, before the dam finally collapsed.
Xander Vale
By noon, Xander was getting dressed for the first time in days without wondering who would be waiting for him when he walked out of the door.
What he should’ve been thinking about was the stranger who’d been inside his house the night before and gotten close enough to make him believe he was about to die. Why his security had vanished.
Those thoughts were still there, but they weren’t the first ones that rose in him when he opened his eyes.
Cassidy was.
Cassidy’s big arm had been locked around his waist. His chest warm against his back.
Cassidy’s breathing was slow and deep behind him, steady enough that Xander had fallen into the rhythm of it instead of into the panic that’d been yanking him out of sleep for days.
For a few quiet seconds, he’d only felt the weight of a strong man holding him, and something inside him had loosened with a relief so pure it almost hurt.
He hadn’t woken once. He’d slept because his mind believed Cassidy when he said he was safe.
He smiled…actually smiled.
And Cassidy hadn’t slipped out of bed the moment the sun rose. Instead, he’d waited until Xander was fully awake, then drew him closer.