Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 119184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 596(@200wpm)___ 477(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 596(@200wpm)___ 477(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
The corner of a smile touches her mouth, brightening the pain shadowing her eyes.
“It won’t come to that,” she insists.
“I don’t care if it does. If it does, I’m game. Whatever it takes. What he did is revenge porn. That’s inhuman, and it’s also fucking illegal. A goddamn invasion.”
“Believe me, I know.” She touches my face, a line between her brows forming. “I know.”
“Good.”
“But you know what’s weird?”
I stare at her, waiting.
“I feel safe with you. Even with the growly threats you can’t act on.” Her fingers trace my jaw. The contact feels like being branded. The sweetest agony. “Which is pretty ironic, knowing this is fake.”
“Fake?” I huff a breath and adjust her so she’s straddling my lap. “Trust me, woman, this is as real as it can get.”
And then I prove it, bringing her mouth to mine with bedlam in my lips.
XIII
Dirty Animals
(Lena)
Fourth time’s the charm.
Pretty sure that’s the saying.
Brady’s mouth claims mine with a hunger that speaks louder than any soft words and flowery kisses can. The emotion, the roughness—it’s like a lightning strike reverberating through my nerves.
How angry he is for me.
How much he shares my pain.
How deeply he wants to soothe it like the tide wearing down pure stone.
I’ve never felt anything like it before—this honest fanaticism from a man who wants to defend me. It’s so far beyond my comprehension in a brain that’s been kicked and bruised.
Mom was perfectly kind when I grew up, but she didn’t do much to warn me about men. Aside from Dad, I guess she never had much experience with romance, and with him she got lucky.
That’s why Harry Jay was my teacher. He scarred me. He made me grow a cyst around my heart.
When Harry hurt me, I told myself I’d never give anyone else the chance.
It was too dangerous that way. Too easy to get hurt.
Your heart only shatters once before you’re scrambling to save what’s left, chasing the shredded pieces like loose marbles, trying to prevent them from pulverizing and blowing away.
But Brady doesn’t try to tie me down with pretty words.
He doesn’t undo the damage, because he knows he can’t.
He knows I’m not someone you buy with cheap talk and big promises. Maybe once, in another life, but not anymore.
It’s just his thick, dark hand in my hair, his mouth on mine, his tongue delving against mine with that savage tenderness he’s so good at.
It’s him holding me like I’m more precious than anything he’ll ever own. And Brady Pruitt owns more than I can fathom.
He has an easy claim to high-value women, goddesses who make me look like a dumpster raccoon—bright-eyed, superhuman freaks of nature who could make his life paradise.
But his kiss tells me he isn’t choosing the cakewalk.
He’s choosing me.
If we ever had restraint, it’s obliterated now.
I tug at his clothes desperately, wanting them off. He’s working at my T-shirt, snarling to get it over my head without breaking the kiss.
It’s a little hilarious, but I’m not laughing when I feel his teeth pulling my bottom lip.
One of us will win, sooner or later.
Eventually, there’s no choice but to laugh with giddy delight. All the crazy emotion spills over into a haze of pure desire.
Weirdly, after telling him my life story, I feel lighter.
Like he’s taken my burdens and locked them away in a dark cellar. Somewhere they can’t escape and continue stripping me to the bone.
When he saw Harry, he didn’t hesitate. He just charged in.
Then he kept demanding every rotten detail from me, and I gave them up like splinters torn from my skin.
That realization overwhelms me as I win the race to undress, yanking his shirt off over his head. My fingers land on a small fresh bruise blooming on his shoulder.
“Oh no. Don’t tell me he—”
“Barely a bump. He elbowed me when I whipped him around. Forget about it, Sass,” he insists, kissing me so hard I obey.
I try.
But the visible proof of how he cares makes me a special kind of crazy.
I’m not elegant, and I’m definitely not graceful right now—actually, I feel a little like an elephant playing Twister—but when he looks at me with his hair gloriously mussed, he’s laughing.
“Come the hell here,” he rasps, pulling me closer.
Skin.
So. Much. Skin.
Obviously, I’ve seen a naked man before. Not since Harry, admittedly, but I never intended for him to be my last. The few dates I’ve been on were so meh I couldn’t bring myself to go to bed with mediocre men who might hurt me.
That trust thing really got me good.
But there’s no nagging voice in the back of my head whispering a warning, telling me to stop right now.
Instead, that heat pooling between my legs becomes magma.
I grind against him like an animal in heat.
He groans into my mouth.
Hearing his desire deepens mine. My pussy throbs so much it hurts.