Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Below us, Sitka glimmers like a constellation curled against the dark curve of the bay. Golden specks of porch lights, streetlamps, and late-night diners flicker against the black velvet ocean. Beyond that, the islands slouch under a shroud of mist.
The harbor, tattoo parlor, mechanic shop—my world is a cluster of lights, shrunken to the size of a snow globe. It’s too much and not enough all at once. Beauty edged with mystery.
Like Wolf.
I hear the click of the kickstand and feel his presence behind me. He doesn’t say anything, giving me the moment, letting me soak it in, letting it scrape something soft and vulnerable inside me I didn’t know was still there.
Then his arms wrap around my waist.
He pulls me gently, insistently, until I’m lifted and straddling him on the bike, facing him, our breath tangling in the cold.
“I don’t approve of his gifts.” His gravel-deep voice nips across my skin, leaving pleasurable goosebumps. “The skates. The clothes. That wasn’t generosity. It was invasion.” His hands settle on my hips, hot even through denim. “I’m not mad at you, darling. I’m mad at him for thinking he can buy his way into your thoughts. Into your life. That’s not how this works. Not with you. Not with me.”
I swallow hard.
“I have more money than I’ll ever need. More than I want.” He works his jaw. “I don’t give a fuck about any of it, except what it can do for you. I want to feed you. Clothe you. Protect you. Not because I think you need a savior. I want the chance to court you like you deserve. To earn you.”
“I didn’t come to Sitka to start another relationship.”
His brow creases, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I’m wreckage. You don’t want what I am. I’m the aftermath, not the beginning. And you…” I lift my hand and press it against his chest, right over the place where his heartbeat fights beneath the scars. “You don’t trust me to see you without a shirt.”
He closes his eyes, pained. My words hurt.
When they open again, they’re soft. Liquid blue. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“I don’t carry many scars you can see. The few I do?” A wind rushes through the cliffside trees, and I shiver. “I put them there myself.”
“Self-harm?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“Self-preservation. Stupidity. Maybe both.”
The silence returns. Loud. Dense. Mutual. Two crippled creatures sitting in the dark, unable to name what broke them. But knowing.
Knowing.
He stares at me for a long, breathless heartbeat. Our eye contact stretches between seconds, waiting for the world to tilt.
Then he moves.
One hand threads into my hair, gripping tight enough to anchor. The other sweeps around my waist, dragging me flush against him with a strength that speaks of ownership, not apology.
His mouth claims mine.
There’s nothing soft about it. No hesitant question. No careful easing in. It’s a full-bodied answer to everything I just said, denied, and refused to admit I want.
He kisses like a storm breaking loose. Like I’m his. Like he’s never tasted a real meal. Until me.
His lips are rough and sure, parting mine, his hot tongue sliding deep, branding his name on the inside of my mouth. I clutch his jacket, fingernails digging into leather, thighs tightening around his hips as heat floods my chest and pools lower.
He growls into me, a wild animal sound, and shifts beneath me so I feel the full, hard length of his need press up between us. There’s no hiding it. He doesn’t try. He wants me to feel it. Wants me to understand exactly what I do to him.
When he pulls back, his forehead stays against mine.
“Understand something,” he rasps, voice guttural and breath hot. “I don’t share. Not space. Not the past. And not you.”
My heart hammers against his chest.
“Jag puts his name on boxes. I’ll put mine on your heart.” His lips brush mine again, softer this time, but no less territorial. No less potent. “Leave your scars all over me, Heartcleaver. Just don’t leave me.”
He kisses me again, slow and deep and final. A promise sealed with heat and fury.
I kiss him back because I don’t want to pretend I don’t want him.
Because I’m terrified of losing him.
Not to another girl.
Not to my own destruction.
But to Jag.
Jag doesn’t need blades or bullets. He uses charm and seduction, hacking people the way he hacks systems, slipping past firewalls, cloaking himself in manufactured sincerity, and swapping passwords for intimacy.
And Wolf feels too much. He hides it under sarcasm and eccentric clothes, but I see how he takes people into himself. Lets them nest in his ribs. Lets their pain echo in his bones.
That’s why I’m afraid.
If Jag worms his way in deep enough, he’ll rot everything good in Wolf from the inside out. I know that rot. I lived it, and I don’t think Wolf understands how fast it spreads.