Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
He’s breathing hard, his chest digging into mine. His jaw is pulsing, and there’s something lurking in his eyes that looks like a thousand things at once. Anger, irritation, intensity. Possessiveness. So much of it that it causes a burn in my belly.
“Because,” he begins slowly, his voice low and gruff, “six months, four weeks, one day, ten hours, and fifteen minutes ago, before you were the Turner Princess, you were just a girl I was sent to watch. Just a princess I saw through the window one night. With the longest hair I’d ever seen, yellow and thick. So soft-lookin’, like a cloud, and you were sittin’ at the edge of your bed, slowly braidin’ it, gettin’ ready for the night, your small hands workin’, your smooth brow furrowed with concentration. And when you stood up, that braid fell down to the small of your back and I”—he looks away, his eyes glazed over as if he’s seeing it right now—“had to fist my hands, grit my fuckin’ teeth, tighten my entire body, all so I could stay put in my spot. Right where I was, hidin’ in the shadows. Instead of bustin’ through your window and grabbin’ you; instead of wrappin’ your pretty braid around my wrist like a rope and takin’ you for myself. Like those same assholes who came at you in that alley, the ones I fed to the coyotes in the mountains.”
I blink and my mouth parts once again. But no words come out, not even a sound.
But just like before, he doesn’t hold back. “’Cause before you were the Turner Princess, you were just a princess, sittin’ in her blue room, wearin’ her blue dresses, with the smoothest skin I’d ever seen. It shined under the moonlight, sparkled under the sun, just like your pretty blue eyes. Made me think of silk. Of roses. Made me think of things I’d forgotten about, soft things instead of things as coarse and rough as my ropes that make my head hurt.
“’Cause before I found out you’re the daughter of the man who killed my family, you were just a girl who I watched goin’ out with men she didn’t like, men she couldn’t stand, but she still did it. I don’t know why.” His eyes narrow as he continues, “She won’t tell me. But I saw enough that every time she left them, I made sure those motherfuckers knew pain. They knew punishment for puttin’ her through that. For makin’ her do things she didn’t wanna do.”
“Radisson,” I whisper, my heart beating, bruising my insides.
“’Cause before you were a princess named Peyton Turner, you were my Princess. With a mole on the side of your waist,” he whispers, and I gasp. I gasp harder when he takes his hand off the tree and grabs my waist, his thumb somehow digging into the very spot where my mole is without even looking, as if he has it memorized. “Right here.”
“It’s not a mole,” I blurt out, as if that’s the most important thing right now.
“No?”
“It’s a birthmark.”
“A birthmark.”
I blush at his almost indulgent tone. “I, uh, don’t really like it very much.”
He hums, pressing his fingers in. “And I really do.”
“Oh.”
“Very fuckin’ much.”
“It’s strange-looking,” I insist, ducking my head because it does looks like a dark blotch I wish I could erase.
“Don’t know about strange, but it does look like somethin’.”
I jerk my eyes up. “What?”
“Somethin’ I wanna put my mouth on.” He pauses to lick his lips, catching his tongue on his scar. “And suck.”
“You want…”
He moves his hand then, slides it over to my back, just above my ass. “And these.”
I arch into his touch. “Th-these?”
“Two pretty dimples above your pert little ass.”
I swallow, unable to say anything at all.
“Thought about puttin’ my mouth on those too.” My eyes flare while his glitter. And his hand moves again to press on another spot on my belly. “And this”—to emphasize, he pushes his thumb in, making me almost moan—“your swipe of a belly button, all tight and tiny. Somethin’ else to put my mouth on, to taste. Somethin’ else to lick with my tongue, bite with my teeth.”
“B-bite?”
His mouth tips in that lopsided smile of his and my belly melts. “Bite.”
I swallow thickly. “Not like… not like how I bit you, though. Right?”
His smile only widens and a light flashes in his eyes. “No, darlin’. Not like that.”
I blush again, or maybe I’ve been blushing all this time, and at his tone, which makes me feel so much younger than I am, I blush harder. Either way, my cheeks burn as he continues, “That was war. When I put my mouth on you, I’ll make magic with my tongue and make you see stars with my teeth.”
“Radisson—”
“And the list of places on your tight little body I wanna taste and bite and suck on is pretty fuckin’ long. So let’s just say you’ll be seein’ galaxies by the time I’m done with you.”