Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 110802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Harper stayed where she was as Knox prowled to the Bentley, where Levi was waiting. The reaper gave her a “take pity on him” look, but she ignored it.
“I really didn’t expect him to leave,” said Martina as the car disappeared down the street.
“He’s respecting her wishes,” said Jolene. “There’s hope for him yet.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Silky, fiery heat licked at Harper’s skin. It shocked a gasp out of her and tugged at her consciousness, pulling her out of her sleep.
“Shush, baby.”
Her demon snarled at the sound of his voice, making the memory of the argument blast to the front of Harper’s mind. Her eyes snapped open, and she glared at the fucking asshole holding her possessively against him on their – no, his – bed. “Are you kidding me?” He had to be. Or he’d lost all sense of self-preservation, whichever.
“You didn’t think I’d really spend the night away from you, did you?” Knox had waited until she was asleep before taking her from Jolene’s spare bedroom.
“If I’d wanted to come here, I’d have left with you!” Growling, she struggled against him. She was getting out of there. She was going back to Jolene’s house. She was —
Knox rolled her onto her back and used his psychic hands to pin her wrists above her head. “I fucked up.” She stilled, so he continued. “I know that. But you didn’t call me, baby. You didn’t trust me to protect us both.”
“You should have just stuck with ‘I fucked up.’” The rest canceled out his admission and made Harper want to punch him in the face, which would be mega hard while she couldn’t move her hands. And, seriously, who would ever be dumb enough to subdue someone they had majorly pissed off?
“I fucked up,” he repeated.
“Yeah, you did,” she clipped. And he needn’t think that was enough to make her forgive him.
“You weren’t moving, Harper. You didn’t look like you were breathing. For a few seconds, I thought you were dead. My demon went ape-shit. If I hadn’t felt your pulse beating against my fingers, everyone in that office would have been dead within seconds.” He would have lost every ounce of control.
The pain in his tone took a tiny bit of the wind from Harper’s sails. Her demon, however, had no sympathy for him whatsoever.
“Even when I realized you were alive, I was still so frantic that I would have killed Crow right then if my priority hadn’t been getting you someplace safe, far away from him.” Knox combed his fingers through her hair. “At that point, it didn’t matter to me that killing him would be the wrong thing to do; that I would have been undermining myself to my own lair if I’d done for you what I wouldn’t do for another. All I could think was that you could have died.”
“I get that you were scared. I do. But if you think that gives you a free pass to be a shithead and question my integrity, you’re out of your mind.”
The stubborn jut of her chin almost made him laugh. She was just plain cute when she was mad. “When you first asked me to tell you immediately if Crow made any moves, I assured you that I would. But I didn’t. I waited until later that day to tell you. I saw that as protecting you – I didn’t want to fuck up your day by delivering shitty news smack bam in the middle of it. Even though you understood my intentions were good, you were pissed that I didn’t tell you straight away, weren’t you?”
Harper could see what he was getting at: although he knew her intentions were good when she didn’t call out to him, he couldn’t help being hurt that she’d gone back on her word. “Okay, so I didn’t keep my promise. I regret that I was in a situation where I chose to do that, but I don’t regret that I chose to do it.” She wasn’t going to lure him into a trap.
“Just as I couldn’t regret that I’d delayed giving you bad news. In that sense, neither of us were in the wrong. We both had good intentions when we made those decisions, but we still hurt each other when we did.”
Yeah, okay, that was true. “You didn’t answer my question earlier.”
Knowing she was referring to what she’d asked him just before she left, Knox said, “Of course I accept you as you are. I want you exactly as you are. You seem to think I want to control you. I like that I don’t. I like that I can’t. I like that you have your own mind and you demand that I respect that. And I do respect it. But, baby, that doesn’t mean I’ll always like your choices. I’m certain that works both ways.”