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)
“What rules?” It was a rasp, wispy thin air that no longer seemed to exist.
“I don’t get numbers, I don’t stand outside women’s apartments, and I sure as fuck don’t invite them to my house.” Leaning in close, his mouth just barely brushed the angle of my jaw. He rode it all the way up until he was murmuring at my ear, “And most of all, I don’t fuckin’ get attached.”
My spirit flailed, and logic screamed. We already knew what this was. He was a safe place. Sanctuary. A place of healing.
But right then, my heart was veering into dangerous territory.
He edged back and pinned me with the viciousness of his stare. “Gonna warn you right now, I’m not a good man, Charleigh. Need you to know it so you don’t mistake me for something I’m not.”
“I already know who you are, River. I know who you are right here.” I let my fingertips wander down to the ravaging in his chest. “I don’t care about the rest.”
“Fuck,” he groaned, and he wound his hand up in my hair and pulled me toward him until our noses were almost touching. “But you should. You should. I’ve done terrible fuckin’ things.”
Turmoil played through his features. His ghosts. His shame.
“But you’ve also done wonderful things.”
I knew pure evil. I recognized it. Had lived it. And while there was no question that something brutal lived within him, I still understood this.
I had witnessed him with his son and his sister and felt it with the way he had treated me.
The quiet laughter he emitted was malignant, fully directed at himself. “If you really knew, you’d go running so far and fast there’d be no chance of me catching up to you.” Then his voice dropped to a seductive threat as he edged in an inch. “And even knowing it, I still think I’d chase after you.”
“I wouldn’t get very far because you already have me on my knees.”
An offering.
Or maybe I wanted him to be an offering for me.
Give this part of himself because I needed it so desperately. To feel something other than the grief. Other than the loneliness. Other than the fear.
A puff of hot air shot from his nose, and the man turned all beast. Muscles rippled and flexed beneath the tight fit of his tee, and in the muted light, the colors and shapes and innuendo crawled like monsters over his flesh.
I could almost see the demons writhe.
River unwound his hand from my hair, and he edged back and placed both hands on my knees.
A shiver rolled, yet still, I felt as if I were being burned alive. His eyes were flames that licked over every inch of my body. I arched from the couch as if he had me chained by his gaze and he’d given my shackles a yank.
“You gonna let me touch this tight little body the way I’ve been dyin’ to?” His words had gone fierce.
My center throbbed, and my knees spread.
His tongue swept out to lick across his lips. “That an invitation, Little Runner?”
And there was nothing I could do. I whispered, “Yes.”
THIRTY-FOUR
RIVER
Yeah, my little runner was going to ruin me. I knew it. I felt her breaking me apart as she sat there gazing up at me with so much trust and desire in her expression that she might as well have cut me open with a knife.
Wasn’t sure how either of us were going to survive this, but the one thing I was certain of was neither of us were going to be the same.
Guessed I hadn’t been since I’d seen her standing inside my shop’s door.
Girl wrecking my world and turning it upside down.
A roll of greed rumbled in my chest as I edged back enough to take the entirety of her in.
The woman was wearing these fitted black sweats and this tight white tank that fit her in all the right ways. Chestnut hair mussed from where I’d been gripping it. Her lips were still pink and plump from our kisses earlier.
Body just barely beginning to writhe as desire slowly wound her into desperation.
“Looking at you is like looking at the sun breaking on a new day and wishing I could hold onto that moment forever. That’s what I’m going to give you, Charleigh. A million new days where you get to wake up and shine all your light. Shower this world in your beauty because there’s so fuckin’ much of it, it’s a disgrace to keep it hidden. Gonna make you shine, Little Runner. Fuckin’ glow.”
Her thighs trembled, need throbbing so heavy that I could already taste her arousal on my tongue.
My cock was stone, pushing painfully at my jeans, and I ran my palms up the inside of her legs. She arched as I went, though her fingers were gliding into the short pieces of my hair at the top of my head like she was looking for something to hold onto.