Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Tad smartly steps back into the apartment and pulls the door shut, rotating to face me, but I’m far from relaxed at this point. This might not be the time to kill Tad, but after his manhandling of Layla, I want him dead on a downright primal level.
“No lights out,” he orders. “Ever.”
“If you think I’m giving you a kinky freak show, you can forget it.”
“Then I guess you better keep it in your pants,” he replies crudely, reaching in his pocket and producing a vial of ICE. “Get her out here. I need to dose her.”
“Julian and I have an agreement. She’s mine. I dose her.”
He stares at me with hard, bulldog eyes. “You’re pissing me off, Jensen Prescott. You don’t want to piss me off.”
“I’m under Julian’s protection,” I point out. “So, you don’t want to piss me off.”
Tad smirks as if he knows something I don’t, and tosses the vial in the air, forcing me to reach for it to stop its crash to the ground. By the time it’s in my hand, he’s out the door. I watch him exit and decide he’s playing with me, and I don’t like games. Tad’s a problem I can’t get rid of soon enough.
For now, I focus on Layla, who’s waiting nervously in the bathroom. I walk to the door and knock. “It’s me.” I open the door to find her wrapped in a towel and sitting on the edge of the tub, her hair dry.
“What did you mean you have a deal with Julian?”
I set the ICE on the vanity and kneel in front of her—this woman that was my teen crush and became an unexplainable regret that haunted me for many years to follow. I wanted another chance with her, but it seems like every time our paths cross, it’s a prelude to disaster, and I don’t know how to overcome that reality.
But I want to so fucking much, it’s illogical. We barely know each other. And yet, there has always been something familiar and right between us.
As if she’s rejecting that idea, I reach for her knees, only to have her shift them to the right. I sigh with acceptance of how much I deserve such an action and lower my voice. “I promised to ensure you aid Julian’s scientific efforts. It’s what I had to tell him.”
Her bottom lip trembles. “And you get what in return?”
“The only thing I asked for,” I say. “You. I get you, Layla. And an assurance Tad and none of the other men touch you.” My gaze narrows on her trembling hand. “You’re cold. I’ll get you another towel.”
She captures my hand, halting my movement, but the touch—the willingness to touch me—tells a story. Deep down, she trusts me, but logic is working her over, warning her that she knows so little about me.
“I’m not cold,” she declares, and then hesitates, her lips trembling now as well. “It just started. I…do believe I’m in withdrawal.”
Damn it to hell, I think. They’ve turned this beautiful, talented, intelligent, and innocent woman into a lab rat and drug addict, and it’s killing me. I want to save her. I need to save her, but I can’t even take her away from this place without killing her in the process.
In an effort to downplay the situation, I reach for the serum and pull the top off the vial. “Down the hatch, baby.”
She holds up her shaking hands. “I don’t want it.”
“I know. I get it. Believe me, Layla, if I had the chance to turn down what’s been done to me, I would have, but neither of us were given that option.”
“Even knowing now that others, like Julian, would be set free to torment us all?”
My jaw flexes with a bite of muscle and reality. “If I could turn back time, I’d stop it all from happening somehow, someway, but since I can’t, you’re right. Better to be as I am so I can fight. The same applies to you. We need you in this war. I need you in this war.” And I do, I think. There’s something about Layla that has always drawn me to her—to know her, to touch her.
To want her.
She reaches for the vial and downs the contents, choking with the bitterness of the punch and grimacing. “I hate to think what that stuff is doing to me.”
“And everyone else that’s taking it. That’s why you have to survive. To find a way to make the world a better place. To find a way to make people better.”
“I just pray it’s not too late,” she murmurs.
I don’t reply. There’s not much to say. We all hope it’s not too late, but to some degree, the world is forever changed. I can’t promise her that can be reversed. That would mean wishing myself dead, and maybe her as well. Instead, I sit down on the side of the tub with her, expecting her to remain weak for a while longer. I drape my arm around her shoulders, and she leans into me, allowing my body to absorb hers. She is soft and tiny, and yet as big a weapon in this war as any of us can imagine.