Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
For one split second, I thought about running out the kitchen door and toward my car. I kept a set of spare keys in the wheel well. There was a bag in the back seat with a couple thousand dollars hidden in a small safe under a blanket, a few changes of clothes, and a prepaid credit card—things that would hurt me if they were stolen but wouldn’t kill me.
Maybe I could make it. Maybe I could beat The Defender to my car and drive away. Maybe he would never be able to find me. I’d had decades of experience staying under the radar. There were even more precautions I could take.
And maybe I was a fucking idiot if I thought for a second he wouldn’t dig as deep into his reserve as he could and beat me to the fucking door, then… do something to me until I told him everything.
I was no criminal though. I needed to quit acting like I was. I’d never done anything. I didn’t even speed.
I’d spent my whole life trying not to do anything so that I wouldn’t bring attention to myself.
On the slimmest of slim chances that I made it out the door and managed to get away, did I really think he wouldn’t eventually hunt me down? Because by trying not to be suspicious, I’d made myself more. Fucking great.
My feet stayed rooted exactly where they were, and it took everything in me to release the breath I was holding. He was onto too much. My voice wobbled, and I could hear how thin it sounded—nervous, I was nervous—but there was nothing to be scared of. And before I ran out of guts, I blurted out another slice of truth. “Hiding is a very strong word.”
Not a single thing changed about his sharp features. His voice was deceptively steady as he asked in a mocking voice, the sarcastic son of a bitch, “Is it?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I would rather not be found. That’s not the same as hiding, if you want to get technical.”
Those purple eyes were intense, and for one second, they glowed bright before dimming back to normal.
I pressed my lips together, and before he could ask something else, I rushed to change the subject and went with the first thing I could think of. “So… while we’re on the topic of personal questions… do you know who or what did that to you? Because I’ve been losing sleep thinking about having my limbs rendered, as you called it, and I’m paranoid something is going to happen to me every time I go for a run.”
The soft sound he made through his nose made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Every time I got close to him, I’d noticed how he made my skin feel, and if I was beside him for too long, it made the rest of me feel weird too, but not in a bad way. But this? It was different.
And that was the wrong thing to fucking ask from how deep his growl had come out. Only he could have questions. Glad we had that sorted.
“Okay, we don’t need to talk about that,” I muttered under my breath.
I needed to stop asking questions. Stick to business. Dammit, I knew that. But he was talking more than before, and even though I wasn’t sure how I felt about his sparkling personality, he was still someone in my presence, still someone I could talk to, and here we were.
I side-eyed him. “You know what? I’m going to go check my mailbox before it gets any later.” I’d decided not to go for a run since he was awake. The last thing I needed was for him to fall and get hurt. Then he’d be here for longer. Neither one of us needed that. “If you can feed yourself, I’ll leave your plate on the table right here. If not, I’ll be right back,” I told him before consciously walking toward the front door as calmly as possible and not like I was on the verge of throwing up from Mr. Observant over here.
Was I that obvious? Or did he pay that much attention? At this point, I was 99 percent sure he couldn’t read minds.
On the other hand, maybe he was playing the long game and fooling me into thinking he couldn’t.
I side-eyed him again.
He didn’t say shit, but I could feel his gaze follow me out of the kitchen and through the living room. It wasn’t until I was through the door, down the stairs, and halfway across the driveway that I happened to glance back toward the house.
The Defender was on the top step. His head was tossed slightly back, and a beam of moonlight brushed his perfect face. He almost looked like an angel.