Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
I guess it was.
Because a little piece of me died as I stared at him standing beneath the cover of a massive oak.
At one with the shadows that writhed around him like they’d become partner to that untamed volatility.
Swirls of darkness twined and twisted.
His cheeks and jaw carved of steel.
Towering and massive and robbing me of my faculties.
Too ferociously beautiful to be real.
“I warned you that you’d do well to hate me.” Every word cleaved from his mouth like splinters of broken glass.
My entire body squeezed in refusal. “I can’t.”
His big hands fisted at his sides, and those eyes burrowed right through to the secret places that I’d never allowed anyone to go before.
Not even before my belief and confidence had been demolished. Not with any boyfriend or man that had come before him.
It was only Silas. The last man I should want and the first one I’d ever needed.
He took one step closer, and the ground rolled beneath his feet.
His strong features were written in conflict.
“You want this? You really want this?” His words cut through the dense, suffocating air.
Severing through the despair and touching down on that place within me that he had exposed.
“I want it. I want you.”
I said it without reservation.
Torment pierced his expression, and he kept moving, a shadowy eclipse that slipped forward until he was standing right in front of me.
Covering me in a blanket of his ferocity.
“You shouldn’t.” It was close to a growl.
“But I do.” I whispered into the force that drew us together.
Silas reached out and took me by both sides of the face. His hold was acute, like he was trying to get me to understand the severity of what he was saying. “You don’t know the full of who I am.”
“I don’t care.”
He gave a harsh shake of his head.
“I’m a killer, Brinley. It’s what I do.” He ground through every word.
My knees knocked, legs going weak. It was Silas’s unrelenting hold that kept me standing.
I already knew it. I knew it the second Dereck rolled onto his property. I could feel the violence screaming from his body, and he’d all but admitted it many times over as he’d issued his warnings.
But not like this.
This time, he delivered it like blunt force trauma.
I wondered which of us sustained it the worst.
Me or Silas, who tore himself open wide.
Exposing the underside.
Showing me the places he hadn’t wanted me to see. Yet they were painted as distinctly as the horrors he’d painted on his flesh.
“I know.” It tumbled off my tongue, and I wondered if I’d completely lost my mind.
Accepting this.
“Do you?” he demanded, eyes merciless in their claim.
Big hands clutched my jaw as he stared down at me. I inhaled his panted breaths, and our hearts raced as wild as the demand he was making.
“Yes. I know. I see it in you, every bit as clear as I see something beautiful trapped inside.”
I set my hand over the thunder in his chest.
“It’s your heart.”
It’s what he had tattooed there. I figured he meant it as condemnation, but I issued it like praise.
He nearly bowled over, and a sound of desperation rolled through him.
Feral and thinly hinged.
“Knowing who I am, you still want me? You want this?” It was pure disbelief.
“I see you, Silas. Who you really are. I don’t care about the rest.”
Dubiety rolled with the relief.
“Are you sure?” he grunted. “Because once I take you to my bed, I’m not letting you leave it. Once I take you there, you’re mine.”
And I knew we were on a precipice. Standing on a cliff, ground crumbling below us. But I still had time. I could scramble back and run to safety.
But I no longer had any fear of the fall, and I grabbed onto his wrists and pushed myself higher on my toes so my lips brushed against his.
And I whispered, “Yes.”
FIFTY
BRINLEY
“Brinley.” That time when he murmured my name it was in surrender. A complete giving that surged through him, so distinct I felt his body bow.
It was directly followed by a hammering of possession that seeped from his hands and into my bloodstream as he dragged me the rest of the way against him.
Walls toppled as he crushed his mouth against mine.
It was a dizzying assault that spun me into a jumble of need and relief and joy.
This kiss?
It was desperate and freed.
Wild and untamed and really freaking messy.
Almost as messy as this situation, I was sure, but those were the little details that didn’t matter much right then.
His kiss was close to aggressive in its demand, the muscles in his big body flexing in their need to get me closer.
But there was a smile behind that kiss, both of ours, I thought. A dancing light licking against the darkness that surrounded us.
My heart pressed so full against my chest that I couldn’t breathe. I could only feel, given over to the perfect delirium that thudded through my veins.