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)
From seeing the tears and the grief.
“Charleigh.”
That violence hit me anew, but I tried to keep it tapped, to keep from scaring her more, though I couldn’t keep my voice from cutting like razors as I set my cheek against hers. My words were panted into the straining air. “Need you to tell me one thing…are you afraid of me or are you afraid of being touched?”
I edged back so I could see whatever was written in her expression.
And this sweet fuckin’ girl blinked up at me through bleary eyes and whispered, “I’m afraid that I want you to touch me.”
Fuck. I wanted to go on a rampage. Start a fucking war. Destroy the bastard who’d put that look on her face.
Because I knew.
I fuckin’ knew.
I stepped back enough that I could take her by the left hand and raise her arm above her head. The willowy fabric of her shirt gave, and the sleeve slipped down and revealed the nearly healed tattoo that she’d kept concealed there the entire afternoon.
I brushed my lips along the line of words, like I might be able to carry a little of what they meant.
Then I stepped back and murmured, “Go inside and lock the door, Charleigh.”
She stared at me for one long beat of indecision before she turned away from me, her body trembling as she finally found her keys in her purse, metal clanging as she fitted it into the lock.
She didn’t look back when she slipped inside, and I didn’t move until I heard the metal click back into place.
SIXTEEN
CHARLEIGH
Trembling, I pressed my back to the interior side of my door, my breaths rasping from my aching lungs as I tried to orient myself. To steady the fear that continued to pump through my bloodstream.
My fingertips found my lips that felt seared.
Branded by his kiss.
A kiss that had ripped through me on a torrent of flames. Flames I wanted to burn in before they licked deep enough to ignite the old fears.
Wounds opening and threatening to swallow me whole as the terror had slicked through my veins.
Poison that would always be there to consume.
What was I doing? How had I let myself go that way? Let him touch me? Especially after I’d gotten the sense that someone had been out in the shadows, watching me.
Frantic, I looked around my little apartment, unsure of what to do with myself.
It wasn’t odd for me to have moments when I felt as if I were being watched.
Tracked.
Whenever I did, I’d pack my things and get out of town because there was no chance I was going to stick around to find out if my worries were valid.
My only constant had been moving. Staying one step ahead of the peril that would forever haunt me.
Paranoia pushed me to run from one city to another, even though I doubted there was any real reason to keep doing it.
No one knew I existed, but it didn’t stop the slick of ice that would slip down my spine when I’d get the sense that someone was there. Didn’t stop the dread. Didn’t stop the anxiety that one day it would all catch up to me.
Right then, self-preservation urged me to run into my room, drag out my suitcase, toss my few meager belongings into it, and disappear into the night.
It was the first time in over five years that my spirit constricted at the thought of doing it.
Of leaving.
Hope oppressed by the idea of giving into the prompting.
The other part of me warned of how careless I was being.
Reckless.
Slipping into a false sense of security that I would never truly have.
But worse? My mind hinged on River who I could feel lingering outside my door.
That dark, violent energy battered against the wood and slipped through the cracks.
It crawled over me like vapor that had the power to pin me down.
This man who’d…followed me. Followed me when he’d noticed that I’d freaked out.
And there I was—terrified for entirely different reasons.
Terrified of what he made me feel. Terrified of what he made me want. Terrified that for one beat of a second, I was surrendering to him.
God, what was I supposed to do?
It was only made more complex because of his little boy who had just slipped right into my heart—no resistance to be had from his beaming smile and adorable lisp.
From his sister who’d reached out and made me feel important. Made me feel as if I might want to connect for the first time in years.
But it was this menacing, volatile man who really made me want to connect.
Stretch out my fingers and dip them into something that would cause me more harm in the end.
I knew better.
And still, I couldn’t move from where I was chained as I listened to the buzz he emitted from the other side of the door. I could feel the echo of his reticence before his heavy footfalls finally retreated down the steps, growing quieter with each one he took.