Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 44899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
But as I lay there, calculating how early I could slip away before he woke, I found myself wondering for the first time since I’d been freed from the hell that had been my life months ago what would happen if I stayed.
Chapter Three
Sully
I woke to sunlight slicing through a gap in the hotel curtains, cutting across my face like an accusation. My hand reached across the rumpled sheets before my eyes even opened, searching for the warm body that had been there when exhaustion finally claimed me. Nothing but cold cotton greeted my fingertips. The space beside me held only the ghost of her presence, a lingering warmth that might have been real or just a whiskey dream. I sat up, wincing at the protest from muscles I hadn’t used quite so thoroughly in years, and confirmed what I already knew. Darby was gone.
The digital clock on the floor that I had neglected to pick up the night before read ten-thirty AM. Late for me. I typically rose with the sun, a habit prison had beaten into me and one I couldn’t quite shake. But last night had been anything but typical.
I scrubbed a hand across my face, feeling the scratch of stubble against my palm. Something white caught my eye on the nightstand. A folded piece of hotel stationery sat propped against the base of the one lamp on the table we’d somehow managed not to break. I reached for the note, unfolding it with fingers that weren’t quite as steady as they should be.
Thanks for the night, Prison Boy. You almost made me break my rule about saying goodbye.
-- D
P.S. Hotel’s paid up for another day. Consider it a thank you for the orgasms.
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Half amused, half pissed off. The hotel desk confirmed what her note claimed. Paid through tonight. Maybe I could get Knight to hack the hotel and get her information that way. Assuming I really wanted to track this woman down. And I was beginning to believe I did.
I folded the note carefully and slipped it into my wallet, then immediately took it out again to reread the words, as if they might have changed in the thirty seconds since I’d last seen them.
Her handwriting was surprisingly neat, the letters precise yet curvy. I thought it suited her because she wasn’t the hard-ass she wanted to project. She was wild, for certain, but I thought she’d needed our encounter for more than just sex. And I might be deluding myself. Probably was. I was going to find this woman.
I traced a finger over the D of her signature, remembering how she’d screamed my name when she came, the way her nails had dug into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood. I couldn’t wait to show them off. Actually, scratch that (no pun intended). I didn’t want my brothers to see her marks on me. Not like a trophy or something. I wanted them to see those marks as her claim on me. And my accepting that claim. And I was in so much fucking trouble as to not even be believed. (And maybe I did intend the pun.)
I tucked the note away again and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The room looked like a small war had been fought there. I’d picked up several things after our first frenzy, but there wasn’t a fucking pillow on the bed at all now. The duvet was only partially on the bed, and my clothes were scattered in all directions.
The night replayed in my head as I sat on the edge of the bed. The way she’d moved through Throttle like a lit fuse, creating sparks wherever she went. The challenge in her eyes when she’d caught me watching. The electric feeling of her fingers brushing against mine at the bar. The urgent, almost violent need that had exploded between us even before the hotel room door closed. Sweet Jesus, I was in trouble. Even thinking about what we’d done had my dick pointing due north with a drop of precum beading on the tip.
Sex was nothing new to me. I’d had my share of women before prison, a few paid encounters after my release when the need became too much. But nothing like last night. Nothing that had left me feeling simultaneously wrung out and more alive than I’d felt in years.
There had been a connection that went beyond the physical, beyond the pleasure we’d given each other. I thought I’d recognized a kindred spirit in her. We were both survivors, both shaped by circumstances that had left us wary and watchful. Both of us accustomed to keeping people at a distance.
Maybe that’s why her disappearance stung more than it should have. We’d never discussed staying. Never made promises. Hell, I’d even told her I knew she was leaving. Still didn’t mean I liked the reality.