Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“Please?!” Nolan tugged at me again, his sweet little face pinched up in the plea.
Air puffed from my lungs, affected and light, and I swung my legs out from under the picnic table, whispering, “Okay, just for a little while.”
“Yay!” He jumped, brown curls bouncing around his cherub face, and Raven was locking her elbow with mine again.
I glanced back once as we strolled over to the dance floor that was about a hundred yards away, at this man who screamed volatility and still was so dangerously sweet.
Lights swayed above the dance floor, and I let go of the tension as Raven turned and took my hand. She shimmied her hips as she dragged me onto the edge of the floor. “I told you that you were going to have the best time. I mean, what could be better? Margaritas and tacos with your bestie and the most handsome little man on the planet?”
“That’s me!” Nolan shouted, right as he slid on his butt and spun himself around.
I laughed.
Laughed and laughed as Raven twirled me and Nolan spun on the floor around us.
The music alive and pounding through my senses.
Hypnotizing.
Mesmerizing.
One song played out and then another.
I knew right then that my heart was in danger of overflowing.
I swore to myself it didn’t have a thing to do with the man I could feel watching us in the distance where he’d moved back to Kane’s tent.
And for a little while, I fully let myself go.
Dancing and dancing.
The beat of the music rolled through me in decadent waves. Vibrated through my veins and thundered through my body.
My laughter was unending as Raven kept trying to get me to copy her goofy moves.
“Like this, Miss Charleigh!” Nolan was back on his feet, his hands waving over his head as he twirled.
Raven twirled, too, and so did I.
Only I stalled out halfway around when I felt a disorder billow through the air.
The hairs prickled at the back of my neck.
Awareness thick and sticky and crawling over me like a bad, bad dream.
I was facing the lake that had darkened, and the bare light of the moon glittered on the surface. There were still a few people out on the beach area, though they were little more than silhouettes, their faces obscured.
There was nothing in particular that I could make out, but I couldn’t stop the cold dread from slicking down my spine.
Intuition kicking in.
I was such a fool. Such a fool. Getting complacent like this.
“Charleigh?” Raven’s voice was filled with concern, and I jumped when she took my hand. I turned back that way, trying to smile, but knowing it was faltering.
Panic sped beneath the surface of my skin.
I tried to swallow around it as I forced myself to speak. “I need to go.”
A frown marred her brow. “What do you mean? We just got out here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Miss Charleigh?”
Pain splintered my chest as I looked down at Nolan who was peering up at me in confusion, and I couldn’t do anything but run my fingers through his hair before I started to step around him.
Raven grabbed me by the wrist, worry taking over her expression.
I wrangled myself free, regret curdling the words as I whispered, “I’m sorry,” before I turned and fled.
FIFTEEN
RIVER
I couldn’t look away as Raven and Nolan dragged Charleigh to the dance floor across the field.
Night had descended and covered the earth in a blanket of stars, and the lights strung up over the dance floor twinkled, as bright as the diamonds that played along the surface of the lake that were compliments of the silvered rays of the half-hung moon.
“You comin’ or what?” Kane hollered from his tent, and I forced myself to move since I was standing there like an idiot, staring at a girl that I knew better than to touch. Too bad right then I was having a really fuckin’ hard time remembering why.
I ambled back to the tent and plopped into the chair I’d inhabited earlier. Theo and Otto were already there, kicked back and sipping from the bottle of whiskey Kane had broken out.
His tent was still the rage, people lined up for a mile in their goal to imbibe, the laughter and volume of voices growing in time with the level of the music that played from the stage.
He poured me a finger into a plastic cup.
Super classy, but none of us gave a shit about any of that.
“Here you go, brother.”
“Thanks.”
I took a sip of the amber liquid, and I relished in the spice on my tongue and the fire that rolled down my throat. Immediately, my gaze was drawn back to where Raven and Nolan had hauled Charleigh out to the edge of the dance floor.
The three of them were laughing as they took turns spinning Nolan around by the hand, the kid fucking mesmerized by the woman, not that I could blame him.