Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
When the food is gone, he downs the water.
Dean lies on his back, his throat beautifully bruised from my mouth, and damned if I don’t want him to mark me up more too.
He picks up the book from the nightstand and begins flipping through the pages. “Do you know why I like The Count?”
“No.” I settle in next to him, lying down, our faces close.
“Dantès does what needs to be done to those who betrayed him. He doesn’t let them get away with hurting him.”
I can respect that. “Revenge is sweet. But you don’t have to worry about that. If anyone hurts you, I’ll fucking kill them.” The vehemence in my words, in my tone, doesn’t surprise me. “Until I’m done with you, you don’t even have to worry about anyone looking at you wrong.”
Reaching up, I place my hand on his throat, squeezing slightly. Dean’s pupils flare. The book tumbles from his grip, and he’s pulling me down, bruising my lips with a kiss. His tongue sweeps my mouth hungrily, and then his lips travel to my chest and finally my throat, sucking and leaving his signature behind, this proof that Tiernan fucking O’Shea has let Dean claim him. Does he know that no one has ever done this but him?
“I’ll kill anyone who touches you too.”
I laugh off his claim. Of course he wouldn’t take this seriously. He’s never taken a life, and he won’t ever have to…but he could. Somehow, I know he could. “That’s sweet of you, little fighter, but I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t do it.”
It’s the high talking, both of us saying shit that doesn’t make sense, shit that can’t or won’t be real once it fades.
Without another word, he rolls onto his side and closes his eyes. I study him for a moment, the way his eyes move under his lids, the way his mouth is slightly open, how many breaths he inhales and exhales in a minute, then turn the light off.
And for the first time in my life, I go to sleep beside someone I’m screwing…and sleep like a fucking baby.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dean
I wake up with foggy memories of the night before.
Getting fucked by Tiernan is clear in my head. Even if it wasn’t, the fact that my ass is sore would remind me, but it’s the stuff afterward that’s coming back to me in waves.
Inhaling smoke from Tiernan’s lips.
Tiernan on my lap.
Playing with his cock in a nonsexual way and…had I fucking given him a raspberry? What the hell is wrong with me?
Heart in my throat, I wrestle out of the covers and to my feet, needing out of this bed with Tiernan, but when I look down at it, I realize I’m alone. My gaze shoots toward the en suite, but the door is open and the space empty.
I could look around. What I expect to find, I’m not sure. I know everything about who Tiernan is and who his father is. The problem is getting close to Sloan. I need Tiernan for that.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t find something I can use to my benefit or that I can use against Tiernan if I need to.
The twist in my gut nearly knocks me off my feet, swiftly followed by a wave of nausea.
Do it. Fucking do it, do it, Dean.
I take one step, then another, around the bed and toward the nightstand with a keypad on it…but then stop.
“If anyone hurts you, I’ll fucking kill them.”
I shake my head, trying to free my thoughts from Tiernan’s words. Fuck him. Fuck all of them. He didn’t mean that. My father thought Sloan would have his back too, and look how that turned out.
I collapse onto the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, head in my hands, chest hurting while I try to catch my racing breaths. I’d felt so fucking alive last night. With him. How could I feel so alive with the person I’m supposed to hate?
My leg bounces, the room’s spinning, and the second the nausea hits my throat, I know I have to make it to the bathroom now, or I won’t get there without vomiting all over Tiernan’s floor.
I push to my feet, bump my knee on the bed’s footboard, but don’t stop running until I collapse on the bathroom floor and empty my stomach in the toilet. My gut cramps, and I keep going, losing everything inside me. When there’s no more, I flush and sit with my back against the wall.
Part of me still hates him…but I like him too. Relate to him. See myself in him, and yes, I noticed that before, but it was different while I was being swept up in the moment of his hands on me, the feel of him inside me, then being high.