Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 25827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
“You.”
I almost laugh.
“I want you back in my life—"
"No, thanks."
"That wasn’t a request."
"I don't care. I will never go back—"
"It wasn't real," he cuts me off abruptly. "What you saw that night—"
"I don't care because I already have someone else!"
Big mistake.
No, actually, biggest mistake ever, because the moment I say the words—
"Is that so?"
Three words. Pleasantly spoken.
But they're more than enough to unmask him completely, and I finally see for the first time who he really is. Who he always was, and always will be.
His hands haven't moved. He hasn't done anything a security camera would catch. But the room has gotten smaller. The temperature has dropped. The man on my couch who was, a minute ago, a man asking—please, sit down, per favore—is gone, and what's left in his place is the thing the Tribune has been writing headlines about for a decade.
Nicolo Sestini.
And he terrifies me to death.
Chapter Three
I MAKE A RUN FOR IT, of course.
I almost made it to the door, too.
Almost.
But he captures me just before I can turn the knob, and now it's too late—he's the one turning me around to face him instead.
His hand on my arm isn't bruising. It's not even tight. He has me with the kind of grip that says I could let you go right now and we both know I'm not going to. The information lands in my body before it lands in my head. By the time my brain catches up, my back's against the door and Nicolo is half a foot in front of me, and he's not the man I thought I married, and he's also exactly the man I married.
"Did you really think you could escape me?"
His tone is lazy but the darkness of his eyes belies this.
He’s furious. With me. But I don’t care.
"Let me go—"
"Never."
"I will never believe you either—”
"Then believe this,” he grates out.
Noooo!
I'm already twisting and struggling to get away. I already know what he plans to do and I can't—
Too late.
His mouth covers mine, and tears sting my eyes because his kiss...it's exactly how it feels, how it tastes, it does the same thing it did to me back then.
Eighteen years.
Eighteen years, and his mouth still knows mine like nothing's been lost.
I'm still struggling even as he lifts me up in his arms, trying desperately to break the kiss and push him away. But it's impossible. He now has me trapped between his body and the wood at my back, and I'm scared, so so scared because the longer this lasts, the weaker I'll be—
No no no no no no no no.
The moment his tongue slips past my lips is the moment everything's lost. A sob escapes me as he deepens the kiss. I don't want this. I don't want to want this. I don't I don't I don't but aaaah...
His mouth gentles.
Not all the way. Not enough that I could mistake him for a man who isn't going to take what he came here for. But enough that the kiss changes in my mouth from a punishment into something else. Something I don’t have a word for, even now.
He lifts his head to let me breathe, even just for a moment, and what I see in his eyes...
The tenderness in it breaks my heart because I can’t...I can’t make myself believe it.
And even though I haven’t said a word, it’s as if he hears it all the same.
My heart breaking into pieces.
And it makes the tenderness disappear. And something feral and possessive taking its place.
He kisses me again, and it’s back to what it was before. Punishing without being cruel. Masterful without being selfish. But at the same time, it’s just like any kiss from his. It hurts so much to admit this, especially after all those eighteen years...
But as long as he’s the one kissing me, I just can’t seem to think. His palm is settling at my waist now. His fingers are rediscovering the curve of my side through the fabric of my shirt. His thumb is running along the seam where my blouse meets my skirt.
I just can’t think.
All I can do is feel.
And oh, the things he makes me feel with his palm covering me, the shape of me against his hand, and even though he’s just holding me—
It’s because this is him...
That makes all the difference to my body, his touch ripping out a sob from my throat, and I just...
I just start losing it.
Witness states...Witness doesn’t state...Strike this...strike that...
My brain is going haywire with his mouth moving down to the hollow under my ear, the line of my throat, and the place where my pulse lives, and I just...
I can’t stop myself from reacting, my legs tightening around his waist like they used to, and my fingers are now gripping his hair, and the worst part is how this feels...