Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 146034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 487(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 487(@300wpm)
Ezra propped himself on his elbow so he could look down at me. If it caused him any pain, he didn’t show it. Instead, he grinned like a maniac. You’d think the attack hadn’t even occurred last night, with the way he was arching those brows and the razzing question played all over his masculine face. “Hot Cop?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know you’re hot.”
Mischief danced through his expression. “How hot?”
My gaze narrowed. “Digging for compliments, are we, Officer Patterson? Do you really need to hear me say how sexy you already know you are? That I was having a hard time speaking the first time I saw you? That I haven’t stopped thinking of you since?”
Possession filled his growl, and in a flash, he had me on my back and pinned by both wrists above my head. His big body hovered and compelled, his weight on his knees that he’d worked between my thighs.
A fortress.
A shield.
My complete ruin.
A gasp whipped from my lungs, and I writhed beneath his heat. Two inches separated us, the man powerful, rugged and gentle and just so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself right then.
“Maybe the only thing I need to hear is you screaming my name.” He rumbled it a breath from my mouth.
Desire throbbed, and I became very aware of his enormous erection that strained against his underwear.
Apparently, he didn’t mind using it against me, either.
Because he angled down enough to rub it against my center. It didn’t matter that I had on leggings and he was wearing briefs, the thin fabric didn’t come close to stopping the heat that blasted at the connection.
Sparks flashed behind my eyes.
I was also very aware of the square bandage sitting high on the left side of his ribs.
“I’m pretty sure what you have in mind right now is going against Christa’s instructions,” I wheezed through the desire that was trying to drag me under.
“The only thing I agreed to was staying in bed for the next twenty-four hours. I might as well reap the benefits of that bargain,” Ezra rumbled.
Edging back an inch, he smirked.
Damn him. He really did look good in the morning.
Rolling my eyes, I did my best at suppressing the need that lit a path of fire in my veins. It was really freaking hard to put it out when this man had become the yearning inside me. “The only benefits you’re reaping are letting your body heal.”
“I think I can multitask.”
He rocked against me again. I whimpered. “You aren’t fighting fair, Ezra Patterson.”
“You know what they say…all’s fair in love and war.”
“This isn’t either of those things.”
Or maybe it was. Maybe I was terrified of what saturated the dense, thriving air, what enclosed and pushed at every corner of my being.
Maybe it was also a war, whatever we were fighting. Whatever battle he had to wage. Not to mention the lengths I would go to get to my sister.
“Call it what you want, Savannah,” he murmured, “but the one thing I do know is I need you. You say you couldn’t stop thinking about me when we first met? It’s you who has haunted every single one of my dreams since that night when I found you. Made me want things I promised myself I wouldn’t seek for myself. But you…you changed everything, Little Trespasser. You got to places I was never supposed to let you go. And after last night…”
I would have reached out and touched his face if he didn’t still have me pinned by the wrists, and my chest arched toward him on its own accord.
No permission.
No self-control.
Somehow, I managed a little of it when I raised my brows at him, and I forced myself to completely ignore what he had been implying. It was much safer that way. “As much as I love the idea of an orgasm in the morning, you were stabbed last night.”
“It wasn’t a—”
“Don’t you even say it wasn’t a big deal,” I said, cutting him off. “Did a knife not penetrate your skin?”
He grunted.
“Are there not stitches in your side?”
Another grunt, that one more yielding.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I thought what you thought about was me.” Another smirk ticked up at the side of his delicious mouth. A mouth that had just been on me last night. God, I wanted it there again. This man’s lips and tongue were something to write home about, that was if I had someone to write home to.
“You’re impossible, Ezra Patterson, now get off me, you big brute. I need to call Dakota and let her know I’m not coming in today.”
He frowned. “You don’t have to call in for my sake.”
“Um, yes, I do. Like I said, you need someone to watch over you.”
He grunted, then grinned. “Well, I guess if it means you’re going to stay in bed with me all day, I’ll call it a bonus.”