Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
He looked on the edge, his eyes glassy and his posture tight as he walked to the bathroom with lethargic movements.
“I’m coming in, Preston.”
I turn the knob, and I’m glad he didn’t lock the door. Though, even if he did, I’d smash it down.
The bathroom air is thick, saturated with steam and the metallic scent of running water, hot enough to make the mirror fog and the tiles sweat.
My bare feet step on the damp floor, instantly getting wet, and condensation glues my sweatpants and T-shirt to my body. The shower is still blasting in a noisy cascade behind the translucent curtain, but Preston isn’t in it.
No.
Instead, he’s standing in front the mirror, which is half swiped right where his face is reflected. A white towel is haphazardly cinched around his hips, but the rest of his body is wet, glistening under the bright vanity light. A layer of tiny, perfectly formed water droplets clings to the sculpted contours of his chest and abs.
It coats the snake tattoo that looks impossibly alive right now. A riot of black-and-gray scales that nearly slithers out of the skin, shimmering wetly as it moves, its thick body looped all across his right side like a living, deadly sash.
Almost as if it’s strangling him to death.
I approach him slowly, but he doesn’t move.
Doesn’t make a sound.
Just stands there like a statue carved from ice. His skin is ghost-pale, his lips a stark, unsettling blue against the whiteness. Damp strands of blond hair plaster themselves to his forehead. His eyes, which are usually filled with restless fire, are completely dead, staring blankly past his own reflection, unfocused and vacant.
He’s disturbingly zoned out, held captive by whatever phantom he sees in the mirror.
My gaze drags down to his sternum, to the cracked ink, and something in me shifts. I’ve never liked this tattoo, always found it disturbing, but now, I think I know why.
This is a physical representation of something profound splintering inside him.
What, I don’t know. But I’ll find out.
A primal and fierce feeling tears through my bones. An inexplicable gut-wrenching, intrinsic need to shield this fragile creature from the things that live inside his own skin.
And I shouldn’t want that. I shouldn’t give a fuck about Preston.
I’ve always been a goal-oriented person. Illogical feelings have no place in my modus operandi. I’m a planner, which means every decision and step I take has an outcome I calculate for. And that outcome needs to benefit either me or my mom—I don’t give a fuck about anyone else.
And yet as I stare at Preston’s emotionless face, I make the decision to protect him.
From himself, if need be.
And that doesn’t benefit me. At all.
Forget about using him to get closer to the inner workings of the four founding families. Forget about using him altogether.
Not sure when that goal gradually vanished, but it did, and I no longer care for it.
I got so close that I’m making it personal, so how the hell would I ever use him?
He’s not the type to be used, he’s the type to be protected.
And I have no idea what that means. I’ve never wanted to protect anyone other than Mom, and that makes sense, because she’s my mother, who raised me and protected me.
Preston, however, has done nothing for me except piss me off on the regular.
Is it a sense of conquest? A need to make this wild horse fully submit to me?
Whatever the reason, I find myself standing in front of him, blocking his view of the mirror.
But he stares straight through me.
His green eyes looking muddy now, barely alive, as if the light has been stolen from him.
“Can you hear me?” I ask in a clear, firm voice.
He doesn’t move, just keeps staring ahead as a droplet of water falls from his hair and slides down his face like a tear.
“Preston.” I slowly palm his cheek and stroke my thumb along the skin gently. “Baby, look at me.”
No reaction.
Just long, oppressive silence.
I step closer until my chest is fully pressed against his, and his steady, slow heartbeat collides with mine.
My lungs fill with him in a second.
He smells like me—clean soap and a hint of cedar. And I get even closer, wrapping an arm around his lithe waist, fusing my body with his.
“Come on, my prince.” I stroke my thumb over his cheek. “Don’t shut me out. You know I don’t react well to that.”
I lift his chin up with my index finger and brush my lips against his cold ones. “Let me in.”
He shudders in my grip but doesn’t move otherwise, so I do it again, stroking his lips with mine a few times. Then I dart out my tongue, licking a line over his shivering mouth. “Baby…kiss me back like you did the other night.”
I nibble on his lower lip, and he opens for me like such a good boy. I thrust my tongue inside, finding his, stroking it lightly at first, then I devour him.