Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
“Stella.”
I froze at the sound of his voice — one of the men I’d just had blazing through my head now standing right behind me. I took a shaky breath, wanting more time to let all of this try and find a place in my head, but knowing I had to turn around. And slowly, I did.
“Hi,” I said quietly and shortly, my voice terse and my eyes avoiding them. Dallas and Austin frowned slightly, and Dallas stepped closer.
“Beautiful, what’s wrong—”
“Nothing,” I snapped heatedly, my heart breaking a little as I watched the two of them flinch and then glance at each other.
“The hell is going on, Stella?” Austin growled, stepping towards me.
When I recoiled, his frown deepened.
“Tell us what’s wrong, baby girl,” he said quietly, his eyes burning into mine. “I can see you’re hurting, so let us be here for—”
“I have to go.”
I snapped the words as I turned to storm away to follow the last of the guests disappearing into the woods down the trail. But suddenly, I gasped as strong hands grabbed me and pulled me back. The shriek caught in my throat as Austin physically threw me over his shoulder and turned to storm the opposite way out of the clearing, toward the falls.
“Get your hands off of me!” I screamed, kicking and hitting his hardened, muscled body before he finally lifted me off and sat me down on wooden bench someone had long ago built here next to the waterfalls.
“Easy!” he growled, stepping away as I took a swing at him. “Fuck, Stella, what the hell is going on!”
My eyes darted between, my mind and my heart and my emotions still not sure if I was angry or scared or just everything all at once.
Both of them looked at me carefully, before slowly, Dallas nodded.
“Someone told you something, didn’t they?”
I bit my lip.
“Fucking Braun,” he spat, his brow scowling as he looked away.
“Well?” I snapped. “Is it true?”
“There’s a lot we haven’t told you,” Austin said quietly.
I barked out a laugh. “No shit.”
“We’ve known you for a day,” he growled. “How about some slack?”
The three of us froze like that, and suddenly, the fight just went out of me. I hung my head, my emotions welling up inside of me. And I wasn’t even angry, I was just scared, and more than a little freaked out.
“I’m…” I closed my eyes. “I’m sor—”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” Dallas said fiercely as the two of them swept me up in their arms, holding me tight as I trembled against them. “Nothing. We should have told you everything. We wanted to, we were just…”
He trailed off.
“Being pussies,” Austin muttered. “We were scared of, well, this. Of scaring you off or freaking you out. Look, Stella, the whole thing with our dad, you know that’s not us, right? You know we’re not even capable of something like that.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“Our uncle set everything up,” Dallas muttered. “He paid off doctors, board members — you name it. He didn’t just want our company, he wanted to bury us and make sure we never came to try and take it back. When we figured out what the hell was going on, yeah, we ran, and we’ve been here on Blackthorn ever since.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly, holding them close and kissing each of them on the cheek.
“And you really have nothing to be sorry for, beautiful,” Austin purred, kissing me slowly. “That’s all there is. We’ve been here on Blackthorn. At first, we thought about revenge, and how to ‘get back’ at our uncle. But the longer we lived here, the more that life just didn’t even appeal to us anymore. We’ve found peace here in these woods, and now that we’ve found you?”
He grinned, sending a spark right through me.
“Now that we’ve found you, I don’t know what else there is,” Dallas said, kissing my cheek. “And now you know everything about us.” He chuckled. “So I guess now we just need to know everything about you.”
He kissed me slowly, pulling away to let his twin do the same. They moved closer, my pulse spiking as the two of them moved against me and let their hands slide down my body. I gasped, trembling against them and wanting so badly to just get lost in them.
…But there was something they had to know. After they’d just told me all of that? I couldn’t keep it from them any longer.
“Everything about you,” Austin growled, his fingers tugging the hem of my bridesmaids dress higher. “Like what color panties you’re wearing under this—”
“I have to tell you something!”
I blurted it out like a swear word, stumbling back away from them, my eyes darting between them.
“I really have to tell you something.”
13
Stella
The three us went silent as the words left my lips. It was like time stopped, and everything just hung in the air in slow motion. The breeze in the trees stopped, and it was like even the sound of the waterfall in the background slowed and then faded away.