Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Tor hits the turn signal, and the car slows so he can go left.
I have no idea where the apartment is, or if that’s even where he’s taking me, but when he takes another left turn onto a dead-end road with nothing on it except a closed business with mountains of gravel and mulch spread out in the parking lot, I get a little uneasy.
“Um… I think it’s your turn to talk now,” I say, frowning as he pulls into the driveway and around to the side of the building. We’re out of view of anyone driving down the road we were just on.
I lick my lips a little nervously.
Tor puts the car in Park, then looks over at me, a shielded look in his cool blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” My fear must trigger humor as a defense mechanism, because I smile at him. “This is how I always look when I’m extremely comfortable.”
Despite the tension, he cracks a slight smile.
I feel a little relieved that my instinctive disarming method was effective, but there’s still a tightness in my chest.
As close as Tor and I have gotten in a very short time, sometimes I don’t feel like I completely understand him. He can be the absolute sweetest guy, the most protective guy, but then he can be exactly the opposite, too. He can be so ruthless and scary. He can kill, and there are moments when I get the strangest sense that he’s scaring me on purpose. I don’t know why he does that. I don’t know if he’s testing me or… what the hell he’s doing, but right now feels like one of those times. I’m uneasy because he wants me to be.
Last night resurfaces, too.
Not all of it. A lot of it was great. But there was a moment that wasn’t, and in that moment I told myself it was not deliberately scary because he didn’t know…
But my mind isn’t cloudy with kisses and sex today, and in the back of my mind, I have thought about the fact that Tor was in that courtroom with his brother, that there was very likely a moment when he did hear the details of my rape, and I just don’t remember it.
I don’t know why he would do that to me, though.
It doesn’t fit unless I’m missing something.
And that’s a terrifying possibility when the man you’re considering being wrong about is capable of the things I know Tor is capable of.
“I really like you,” he says, and I feel a tad guilty for the thoughts I was just having.
“I really like you, too,” I say softly.
“Even though you’re a little afraid of me?”
My heart does a somersault. I didn’t expect him to call me out like that.
Now that he has, I guess there’s no point denying it.
“I can handle being a little nervous sometimes,” I tell him, holding his gaze. “As long as I know I’ll be okay at the end of it.”
He searches my gaze for a second, then he says, “I like to make you a little nervous sometimes.”
I swallow, my awareness of the tightrope we walk heightened.
It’s not a shock, just a shock that he’s admitting it to me.
“I noticed,” I say softly.
He takes my hand, lifting it and pressing his lips against my knuckles. “I like that you know I’ve done bad things. I like knowing that you like me anyway. I have no desire to lie to you, Cassie. I’m not trying to present a cleaned-up image to you. I want you to see exactly who I am. I want you to know that I’ll sit in a fucking car outside your work to make sure you don’t leave with another guy, and that if you did, I would have no moral qualms about severing any useful appendages from his body. I want you to know all the dark and dirty shit and still like me because that’s how I feel about you.”
It’s an uncomfortable confession, but I make it anyway. “I do.”
“There are no circumstances under which I would ever irreparably harm you—not even if you were a threat to me. You are mine now, and I protect what’s mine. We are a team, and I see us as being permanently in this together, but if it came down to only being able to save one of us, I would pick you. A life without you no longer interests me. If you want the truth, that’s it. I’ve rewritten our entire reality to save your life, so you have to know I would never take it. I think I’ve shown you at this point that I want to keep you and take care of you. So, can you just bet on me the way I’ve bet on you? Trust me, even if you aren’t sure you should?”