Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
She gasped, then rocked against me.
Keeping my weight on my elbow, I lifted my head and found her lashes fluttering slowly as she opened her eyes.
God, her eyes were beautiful, just like the rest of her—crystal blue, like Caribbean pools I wanted to dive into. I wanted to dive into her. She looked up at me with wonder, like I was her fantasy too, and my heart jumped to a fast, skittering rhythm
“Cannon,” she said again, her voice husky as if she’d truly been asleep.
“Persephone,” I answered.
Her hands slid to my face, and she ran her thumbs over my cheekbones with a sleepy grin. “You’re so beautiful.”
Speechless. Even in my dreams, I couldn’t come up with a response to that one.
She rocked against my thigh again, then bit her lip and groaned. It wasn’t just heat warming my skin. She was wet. I felt it even through the material of her panties. Of course, she’s wet. This is your dream.
Her fingers traced the line of my face, and I sucked the tips of two of them into my mouth as she ran them over my lips. She gasped as I flicked my tongue across the digits, tasting the salt of her skin. Her gaze flickered from my eyes to her fingers and back again, widening.
“Cannon...” Her voice shook slightly.
I raked my teeth over the pads of her finger before letting them go free. “Persephone.” Wasn’t that always my reply? I couldn’t hear one name without saying the other.
“Cannon.” She pulled her hand away, staring at her fingers with alarm. “Oh my God. Cannon!”
That was not the way I’d fantasized her saying that particular phrase. I sat back on my knees, and she scooted herself to sit against the headboard. The change in positions started a vicious throbbing in my head, and I lifted my hand to my temple to help assuage the ache. Wait. Why would I have a headache in my dream?
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” she chanted, staring at her hand.
Oh shit. I bit my tongue lightly and felt the sharp sting of pain at the same moment my stomach sank.
This was not a dream.
This was real.
I ran my hands down my face, trying to clear my head.
Persephone was actually in my bed, in Vegas, currently losing her shit—
“Holy shit! You have one, too!” she shrieked, then gripped my wrist.
“What are you talking about? And what the fuck are you doing in my bed?” I growled, pulling out of her grasp. Never mind that I’d had my fucking tongue on her sixty seconds ago; I never touched her if I could help it. Not because I didn’t want to—of course I wanted to. I’d have to be dead not to want to. But I didn’t exactly have willpower when it came to the woodland fairy princess Barbie that was currently staring at me like I had two heads.
She thrust her hand in front of my face.
A giant fucking diamond winked at me from the fourth finger. Her ring finger. Holy shit, that was her left hand, and there was a narrow band of gold just behind it. Complete, utter rage turned my blood to ice.
“Who the fuck did you marry?” I ground out. Whoever it was—he wasn’t good enough for her. I didn’t care how much breeding or money he had, a saint wouldn’t be good enough for Persephone, and God knew that she needed someone stronger than a saint to remove the giant stick she kept up her ass.
She scoffed and picked up my wrist again, replacing her hand in front of my face with my own.
“Apparently, you!”
Words failed me as I looked at the thick band on my left ring finger. It was black, inlaid with a textured sort of silver that might have been attractive if it wasn’t mocking me so loudly.
Someone pounded on our door three times. “Let’s go, newlyweds. Breakfast is here. And put some clothes on before you come out of there.” That voice…Nathan Noble, one of the defensemen on my NHL team—the Carolina Reapers.
My gaze jerked down to my boxer briefs. Not naked. Had I seriously had Persephone under me and not remembered?
“They know. Oh God, they know.” Persephone whispered, still staring at my ring. “What did we do?”
“I have no fucking clue,” I muttered, then got the hell off the bed.
“I don’t remember last night at all. Do you?” Her hair fell all around her, making her look all the more angelic as she looked up at me with eyes that begged for an answer.
I thought back. We’d all boarded the plane in Charleston. Nathan and his fiancée, Harper, Sterling—one of last year’s rookies—Nixon Noble and his charity auction date, and us. “We came for the charity auction thing,” I said as I stared down at a pile of clothes on my side of the bed. Persephone had demanded I participate in the Reaper Charity Auction to help raise funds for the public library. When I made my own demand that she not sell me to someone I wouldn’t consider fucking, she bought me herself, which I guess fulfilled that part of our bargain since I’d never willingly take her to my bed.