Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
That’s the problem.
Because if she keeps looking at me like that, if she keeps feeling like this in my arms, I might forget how dangerous she is. She tried to kill my brother, and I’m the enforcer for our entire organization. I have to make sure she can never do so again. Plus, I need her help, which is a fact I strongly dislike.
But when she speaks, her voice slides inside me, and I want to return the favor. Bury myself so deeply inside her that she forgets all about attacking her enemies.
The thought shocks me, but the woman is a mouthwatering temptation.
And she has no fucking clue how precarious her position is right now.
I shift my gaze past her shoulder, surveying the room again. Thorn stands near the edge of the ballroom with Alana tucked safely at his side. He’s tense, even when he smiles, and his hand keeps ghosting toward his inner jacket pocket. His instincts are screaming, same as mine. They’re too exposed here. Too many angles. Too many windows and too many cameras. I need them out of town by morning.
My eyes lock on Alexei Sokolov, who’s lounging near the orchestra, as still as a predator between strikes. He tips his glass in my direction when he catches me looking. Not a threat. Not now. But Alexei’s the kind of man who chooses chaos the way others choose a tie. As the owner of Hologrid Hub, a social media offering that uses holographic options, he may not be planning anything at the moment, but that doesn’t mean he won’t tomorrow.
Ella shifts slightly in my arms, her soft scent pricking my instincts wide awake and centering them fully on her.
“Have you always been drawn to computers? To code?” I want to hear her voice again.
She tilts her head. “Since I was eight. I broke into a private school server to change a grade and was caught, but they couldn’t kick me out since I wasn’t on scholarship.”
Her voice hits differently this time. Lower register. Light sarcasm, like warm electricity winding through nerves already frayed raw. The softness sparks something in me I can’t control. Not anymore.
I grit my teeth.
The thing crawling inside me that makes simple voices somehow physically injure me, that’s coiled under my skin and burrowed deep in my veins, calms when she talks. I don’t know why or how. It’s like she’s figured out how to hack me, and a part of me wonders if she has. If she can hack into crystals and cause chaos that can infect people, why not in a direct line to men? Her voice cuts through my usual pain with an erotic slide of heat. Not perfectly, but enough to take the edge off. This is the closest we’ve ever talked, and my cock is brick solid, taking me out of my pain for a moment.
No one knows the mess that has descended upon me. Not Thorn. Not anyone in our organization. I tried to save my brother and ended up screwing myself. I’m good with computers; not as good as Thorn, but I should be able to figure it out. The static in my vision is one thing, but voices hurting me worse than before, as bad as bullets, is pissing me off. There’s a heat in my spine that never cools down, and it’s Ella’s fault. Completely. But now she’s making me feel better.
She doesn’t know what she’s done, I’m fairly certain. No way has she hacked me—that was a fanciful thought now discarded. So she has no clue that she’s harmed me. That’s the dangerous part. If I ask for her help, she’ll know my weakness. Know she’s more powerful than she thinks.
So I don’t ask.
Not yet.
But if this illness gets worse, and it probably will, I may not have a choice. I might have to kidnap her, which would solve two of my problems, really. It’d take her out of commission when it comes to harming Thorn, and I could make her heal me once I have her locked down. Yeah, I want her under my control. Completely.
She looks up at me like she’s about to say something else. I pray she does and brace for it. For her voice. For the tone that heals my pain and also fires my body alive in a primitive way that’s new.
God, I want her to talk again.
Even if it ruins us both.
Ella
I want to stomp on his foot. I really do. Except his foot is huge, and his leg is between mine. In fact, his entire body is too close, too hot, too steady. It would be like trying to kick over a statue. One with excellent posture and a superiority complex. What did he mean about my moaning on the dance floor? Can he tell how my body reacts to him?