Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Lucas turns with me in his arms, and I notice the car just before he spins us around to walk toward it. Farrow probably moved it when Lucas took off to chase me earlier. He doesn’t want to explain to anyone else why his car is here, does he?
“Quinn,” Lucas whispers, staring at my mouth.
The heat of his stomach presses between my legs, his hard body making me throb. I expected him to be pissed. He looked angry when he set off to pursue me before. But his fingers are gentle, his breathing calm.
Nudging my chin up with his nose, he sinks into my neck, brushing his lips against my skin.
I shiver, but still…
“No.” I push him back and jump out of his arms.
Landing on my feet, I step back. And keep going.
He pinches his eyebrows together, and I look at his fingers balling into fists.
“You’re lying,” he says in a deep voice.
Am I? My body aches, and I can’t calm my fucking heart, but I’m not going to let him use me to avoid what he has to face.
“I’m not lying,” I reply. “I’m not like you.”
I’m not afraid to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear.
His jaw flexes, and he steps toward me as I back away.
“I know you’re lying,” he bites out, continuing to advance on me as I move. “What was your plan when I finally came home, huh?”
I narrow my eyes. My plan?
He quirks a smile, tilting his head to the side. “Come on, Quinn,” he taunts. “I know you thought about how it would go.”
I jerk my chin up, watching his eyes gleam. He doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.
But his voice drops to a whisper, almost pleading, “Tell me.”
I stumble on a rock, quickly righting myself.
I didn’t have “plans.” Fantasies, maybe.
He peers down at me. “Did you think about me sneaking you into my arms when your brothers weren’t looking?” he asks me. “Behind a door? In a dark corner? In a far-off bedroom?”
I force the lump down my throat, images of all the stupid scenarios and shit I used to dream up pushing to the surface of my mind.
“Or maybe you thought I’d see you in a beautiful gown at one of your mother’s fundraisers,” he continues, advancing on me as I keep backing up, circling the car, “and not be able to take my eyes off of you. Is that it?”
I harden my eyes, spitting fire.
He just thinks I was wasting away my days, pining for him.
What a waste of time that would’ve been.
He keeps stalking me. “Or perhaps you’re walking home from the bakery one day. You get caught in the rain and climb in my car when I drive by.” Lucas holds my eyes, and I know the scene is playing in his head too. “We laugh and talk, just like old times, and then…I park somewhere.”
I back into the edge of the trunk, hissing as pain shoots through my ass. Sidestepping the vehicle, I meet his gaze again, glaring.
“In a secluded wood,” he goes on. “And you slide into my lap, and after a while, we can’t tell if we’re wet from the rain anymore or from the sweat.”
I breathe hard, seething. I can’t help seeing the fantasy play in my head though, hearing the rain on his car roof as we make out inside. His hands under my dress. His tongue on my breast.
Pushing the images away, I scurry back a few steps, increasing the distance between us. “You’re making fun of me.”
I wanted him.
I care about him. I’m worried about him.
But I’m damn-well telling him no.
“It must’ve been a double-edged sword,” he tells me. “You wanted me home but not too soon, otherwise you would’ve been too young.”
Screw you…
“But not too late, either,” he adds, “otherwise I might marry someone else.”
I shake my head.
But I know everything he says is true even if I won’t admit it to him. Except the part where he snuck me into his arms in a dark corner. It was Madoc’s basement, actually. And it wasn’t a hot afternoon in his car. It was a wintery night in the dead of December.
Where the hell are my brothers? I’d kill for Jax to show up right now. He’s the one people are most afraid of.
“You were in a race to grow up.” He charges me and grabs my arms. “And this is what it was for.”
No!
I shove him away with a scream. “It was for a dream!” I yell. “For someone who never really existed!”
I was a kid. A stupid kid who wanted an ideal that wasn’t real. And I knew it then. I knew it when I was sixteen, when I was eighteen, and now. The more you dream, the less it’s going to happen.
He steels his spine, lifting his chin. “Congratulations,” he says in a snide tone. “Now you’ve officially grown up.”