Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
He’s in front of me in an instant, his hands on my shoulders, his touch soothing me in ways a mere touch should not, not after he made it clear we’re not together. “I do not want to leave you, not even a little bit, and we both know we were always more than sex. That wasn’t even close to what our weekend was together. I know that. You know that.”
“Do I? Because right now—”
“I’m trying to figure out what to do with the information that has been thrust on me today. And I’m not talking about the mark. We were both shocked when we thought you didn’t end up with it, Addie, and that was because of what we felt together. What I’m worried about is the rats killing the rats.” His head turns sharply toward the door, his hand lifting to me in a silent motion. “Julian is here,” he says softly.
“What? Why? And how do you know it’s him?”
He doesn’t explain. “Stay here,” he orders, and he walks to the door and exits, firmly shutting it behind him.
My heart is racing, my mind on those lab tests and the dead rats. I tug my shirt together and race to the window to find them already standing together near my car. Neither of them waves hands nor lifts a fist, but I can feel the tension between them. It radiates off them even with the walls of my house between us. A full five minutes pass before Julian disappears into the wind and Creed reappears on the porch.
The door opens, and I step in front of him, every nerve in my body pitter-pattering a crazy rhythm. I’m so on edge, I feel drugged. “What was that?”
“We’re leaving on a mission tomorrow. He’s strongly opinionated about it.”
I search his face and find the truth and it’s not a good one. “You’re lying.”
He catches my shoulders and pulls me to him. “I’m protecting you.”
Those damn words again, that now burn like acid in my belly. They are the end of us. I know it.
He strokes my hair, tenderness in his touch that defies the man I know to be capable and willing to kill Julian, a man he’s called nuclear. “I have to go.”
“The mission?”
“Yes. The mission.”
I want to say so many things right now. I want to demand answers, but I can feel his stubbornness. I’ve gotten all I will get from him, at least right now, and maybe tonight. “Are you going to come back?”
“I don’t know when. You know how this goes.”
I nod. “Yes.” But this is more than him leaving on a mission. As he said, I know it. He knows it.
He caresses my cheek and whispers something I can’t quite catch. I capture his hand and say, “Just come back.”
“Be careful, Addie,” he replies, echoing the please I’ve offered him in the past. “Be smart like I know you are.”
“You, too. Please.”
He nods, but he doesn’t kiss me. That’s what really guts me. I have this sense he feels that if he does, we’ll end up against the wall again and he won’t leave. That would be okay with me.
But he releases me, leaving me bitterly cold, and he walks toward the door, but panic rises inside me. I can’t seem to let him go.
“What exactly are you protecting me from?” I call after him, because it’s not those lab rats, not wholly. It’s about Julian showing up here tonight.
He pauses but doesn’t look at me. “Everything, Addie. And more.” He walks out of the house, and I hurry to the door, wanting more of an answer. To my surprise, I find him standing almost in the same spot where he’d been talking to Julian, only this time he’s talking with Caleb. The conversation is brief and then they’re both just gone.
Creed is gone, and I have a sense of loss like I might never see him again.
Chapter Thirty
Morning comes slowly, as I toss and turn, and wish for Creed’s return. This after I’d chided Katie for calling me in an attempt to talk about the data I’d given her. “Not on the phone,” I’d warned. “We’ll have lunch.”
“How about breakfast?”
“I need to get to the office in the morning and talk to my father again.”
“Okay, yeah. No kidding.”
After that, there’d been nothing but Creed on my mind. The more I’d fretted, the more the mark on my neck burned, and I’d begun to wonder if this is how I will be, and feel, without him. When I’ve finished dressing for work, I stand in front of the mirror, eyeing the hollow, dark areas beneath my eyes. I look like death, and I feel a bit like it as well. My biggest worry isn’t about Creed giving me the cold shoulder. It’s about why.
It’s about Julian.