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)
When I’d been sure the man was dangerous.
Only I’d never been so sure of it than right then.
I didn’t know whether to be terrified or comforted that his words were clearly not an idle offer.
Okay, I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t comforted.
That was absolutely what I’d been as I burrowed myself into his hold because I’d carried this fear on my own for so long, it’d felt like the greatest relief to rest in someone else.
I gave him an erratic nod, and he reached around me and pulled a tissue from the box, and he dabbed it all over my face.
Gently.
Tenderly.
Watching me with those stormy eyes the entire time.
God, how could this menacing man make me feel so important?
“Let’s get you out of here,” he rumbled as he tossed the tissue into the trash, and I swallowed down the emotion that still roiled, sniffling and straightening myself out as I prepared to go back out into the lobby.
I’d never allowed anyone to see me this way before, and part of me wanted to hide it, but the other knew there was no shame in it the way River had said.
This was real.
My trauma was real.
My loss was real.
And I think it was the first time since everything happened that I’d begun to allow my grief to truly come out. To process who I wanted to be on the other side.
“Okay,” I told him.
Satisfaction flashed through his expression. Heat spread through me when he weaved his fingers through mine, and he lifted my hand and brushed his lips over my knuckles.
My knees wobbled. This man was going to do me in.
He was all terrifying confidence as he led me out of the back office, down the hall, and out into the middle of the tattoo shop.
The man and woman I’d never met before who’d come running out to my aide were still there. The man appeared cautiously confused while the woman ran her hands up and down her heavily tattooed arms as she gazed across at me in worry.
But it was Otto who tossed out one of his enormous grins. “Ah, there she is. You good, darlin’? Had me worried there for a bit.”
“I’m fine,” I managed, feeling ill-at-ease as I stood there shifting beneath the weight of the attention the three of them had on me.
“Of course, you are. You just needed a little breath, and it looks like you came to the right place to get one.”
His blue eyes gleamed, the focus of them dancing back and forth between me and River as if he were trying to calculate what had transpired between us.
Why I was there all while he seemed satisfied that I had been.
River still held my hand in his big paw.
Unwilling to let go.
He grunted in response to Otto’s words. “We’re gonna split. Lielle, you closing up?”
The woman with bright turquoise hair sent him a nod. “Yeah, I’ll be here with a client until ten.”
“Good. If anything comes up, give me a call.”
“I will.”
Then River lifted his chin at Otto, and Otto did the same.
It was a negligible demonstration, but I swore the two of them had shared a secret, covert conversation in the half second it’d taken.
“Will check in, brother. You two be safe.” Otto’s gaze was fixed on me when he issued it, eyes making a quick pass over my body as if he were evaluating if I was really okay.
As if my scars might be visible.
River pulled open the door, and he released my hand and swiveled around to hold it open so I could pass through, but rather than taking my hand again, he splayed his palm over the small of my back.
Fingers wide as if he could cover me whole.
Only the second I stepped out in the light of day with people all around, I had to fight against the current of anxiety that threatened to take me hostage again.
Run. Run. Run.
My rationale chanted it, urged me toward what had been my creed.
River’s mouth came to my temple, his voice a rumble that tumbled through the center of me. “Let me be your shield, Little Runner.”
I barely nodded against it, and I could feel the tension wind him in a fist as he sent glares shooting through the atmosphere as we walked down the sidewalk. A clear warning for people to stay out of his way.
He never allowed his scrutiny to wane, the man a steel barricade that surrounded me, completely vigilant as we hurried down the sidewalk.
Groups of people parted before he even got close enough to touch them, the power of his being dividing them as he barreled through.
We passed by the couple businesses that were housed in the same building as River of Ink before we made it to Broadway.
It was the same intersection that I’d come running up from mere minutes ago, where in my panic I’d nearly gotten hit, but rather than heading back that direction, River took my hand and wound around the building to the right.