Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Her brows pull in as her gaze searches my face. “Why now? Because we sleep together?”
“No.” My thumb grazes her cheek. “Because I’m in love with you.”
She quickly untangles herself from my hold and sits up. “You don’t want to love me.”
Her words catch me off guard.
“I don’t?”
“No, because love doesn’t lead to anything but heartache.”
“Now you’re beginning to sound like me.”
“I’m serious, Ares. I’ve never been in love, and I don’t ever want to be because the people I love die, and it hurts.”
Her words sting.
Hearing the woman you’ve fallen for tell you that she doesn’t want you to love her is like a searing hot poker to your balls. But I know it’s because she’s scared.
She loves me.
I can feel it in the way she touches me.
It’s in the way she kisses me.
And it’s there in her urgent whimpers when she sinks onto my cock and rides me.
I don’t blame her for being scared.
Being in love with her fucking terrifies me.
She gives me a grave look, her skin pale in the moonlight, her hair cascading over her naked shoulders and down to her breasts.
I reach up to cup her face. “The only person I ever loved died, and for a long time, I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way about someone else. For two decades, I ran from it. But then you came crashing into my world, and things haven’t been the same since. I’m in love with you, little one, and there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it.”
A tear slides down her cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb. “It’s why I want to do this. I want to make him pay for laying his hands on you.”
More tears spill down her cheeks. “You would do that for me?”
“Angel, there isn’t a goddamn thing in this world I wouldn’t do for you.”
Her face breaks, and she starts to cry.
Sitting up, I gather her into my arms, and she softens against me and sobs into my chest. She feels so tiny and soft and so infinitely perfect. My heart twists with longing to protect her from everything and anything, even her own tears. I smooth down her hair. “It’s okay,” I whisper.
“When I saw the barn collapse…” She lifts her head, and her cheeks glitter with the trail left by her tears. “When I thought I had lost you… in those minutes, it didn’t feel like the world would ever be right again. And then you were there, and you were alive, and the relief made me weak all over I could barely breathe.”
“So why are you crying?”
Her face breaks again. “Because that’s when I knew I had fallen in love with you.”
My heart soars, and I can’t stop the smile playing on my lips. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is,” she sobs. “Because I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”
“Says who?”
She stops sobbing, and with a sharp hitch of breath, she becomes very still, and it’s almost like darkness enters her big almond-shaped eyes. Her expression changes, her eyebrow lifts, and she seems to get lost in thought.
“Hey?” I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It’s okay, you don’t have anything to be frightened of.”
Her gaze comes back to me, and she looks frightened. “Ares, there is something I need to tell you.”
The coolness in her voice is unsettling as well as the fear in her expression.
“You can tell me anything,” I say, not liking the sudden mood change.
I don’t like the way she looks uncomfortable as she tries to find her next words, either.
“There are things you need to know.”
“Then tell me.”
She draws in a deep breath. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“People very rarely are, baby.”
“Who I was when I came here isn’t who I am now.”
I cup her jaw. “I don’t care who you were or what you’ve done, what matters is now.”
“You couldn’t possibly mean that.”
“I can, and I do.”
The sharp shrill of my cell cuts into the tension and makes her jump.
It’s Jack.
I answer it, but I don’t take my eyes off Rory. “Yeah.”
Jack doesn’t waste time with pleasantries. “I need you back at the clubhouse. I’ve called Church. We need to clean up this mess.” He hangs up.
It’s the worst timing in the world because I have a feeling Rory is about to pull the rug out from under me, and I need to hear her say it. But I’m sergeant-at-arms, I have to be where my president tells me to be, and he will kick my ass if I don’t get there as soon as possible.
“I have to go, but we’ll talk when I get back…”
I pause. I feel so in love with her right now, but there’s a shadow looming in the distance. Her body language has changed. She’s closed off.