Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“What are you doing here?” I’m so bewildered I drop my keys. She lives states away, but here she is on my front stoop in her business clothes as if she ran out of one of her constituent meetings.
“Let’s go inside.” She tries to smile but her teeth don’t show. It’s the fake smile, the one she uses when she’s campaigning. It won her a city council seat, then the mayoral election. But it gets no points from me.
I stare at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Come on.”
I hear the wobble in her voice, and my stomach drops. “Tell me.”
“Please, Georgia. Inside.” She takes my keys and unlocks my door with shaking hands.
“Sit down.” She walks to my couch and sits.
“Is it Mom? Dad?” I swallow hard and drop my backpack, then plop next to her. “Just tell me.”
She takes my hands in hers. “It’s Dad.”
The bridge of my nose stings, and I force myself to ask, “What happened?”
She tells me. He’d been cleaning out the rain gutters along the roof. The ladder slipped. That was all it took. One accident. One misplaced foot or errant reach for more—it’s enough to give death an opening.
Candice, though, her death wasn’t some twist of fate, an unhappy accident. It was a brutal killing, the taking of an innocent life. What I feel isn’t just grief, the shock of loss. It’s horror. It’s something darker and deeper—rage. Impotent rage that morphs into guilt and then back again. I should’ve done something. I should’ve helped her.
“Shhh.” Valen strokes my hair. “It’s over. Only a nightmare.”
“It’s not.” My chest stutters as more tears try to escape. “It’s not a nightmare. It’s real.” I look up at him, at his shining eyes in the dim light. “You’re real.”
He cups my cheek. “I won’t hurt you, Georgia.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You shouldn’t.” He glances at my mouth, one of his hands cupping the nape of my neck. “But it’s the truth.”
He shouldn’t be here. Not in my bedroom like this. I’m vulnerable. He’s dangerous. My emotions are running too high for me to think straight. Grief and terror, loneliness and regret. “Why did you come?”
“I heard you scream.”
“That’s not why.” I shake my head, more tears falling along my cheeks. “Tell me the truth.”
“I already told you.” He uses his thumb to swipe them away. “Your blood calls to mine,” he whispers.
“I don’t know what that means.”
He drops his palm to my chest, pressing it over my heart.
My breath hitches.
“This.” He presses against me, his touch warm through my thin shirt. “This calls to me. I feel it as if it’s my own.”
“You don’t have a heart.”
He smirks, a cruel twist of his lips that makes my stomach flutter. “I’ve been told that before, but I assure you I do.” His hand slides lower until it’s cupping my breast. “I have desires. Dreams. Nightmares.” He runs his thumb along my nipple, and it hardens at the touch.
My entire body heats, desire fizzing through me in an effervescent haze. Why am I not pushing him away? Because I’m weak. Weak and worn out. I don’t know who I am in this moment. Don’t know what I want.
“My blood calls to you, too, kedves verem.” His fingers twine in my hair, and he pulls my head back until he’s staring down into my eyes. “You feel it.”
“I—”
He claims my mouth. Not gently, not anything except predatory and possessive. It steals my breath, my heart pounding as he swipes his tongue against mine, an animalistic growl in his throat.
I can’t think. Can’t do anything except feel him, his hard body pressing against mine as his mouth takes me over in a searing kiss. He angles my head, deepening it as he tongues me. I grip his shirt, my body tingling, my mind humming with need and nothing else. There’s no room for any other thought.
He holds me tightly and takes, and takes, and takes. And heaven help me, it feels so good. So delicious. I open wider for him, our tongues tasting and teasing. It’s heaven and it’s hell. But I can’t stop.
Laying me back, he doesn’t break our kiss as he lifts my shirt, his hand finding my breast again. When he twists my nipple, I arch against him. Now his growl is deeper, rumbling through his chest and into mine.
Pressing a thigh between my legs, he settles on top of me. When I feel his thick length against my thigh, I moan. He swallows the sound, his hand still at my breast, teasing my nipple until I’m writhing at his touch.
I have no rational thought, no reasoning, nothing but a desperate need that courses through me, tightening a coil inside me until it’s ready to spring free. It’s been so long, so desperately long since I’ve been touched like this. Since I’ve wanted to be touched like this. But with him, it’s more than simple want. It’s all-encompassing. It’s the feeling I’ve been fighting for months now. Invited to dance with the devil. Refusing, and refusing, and refusing until it’s all too much, too fucking intriguing to say no.