Total pages in book: 205
Estimated words: 204377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1022(@200wpm)___ 818(@250wpm)___ 681(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 204377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1022(@200wpm)___ 818(@250wpm)___ 681(@300wpm)
Face down.
Across his lap.
I’m too stunned to speak. Too distracted by the mammoth cock jabbing my stomach. Too slow to stop him from pulling down my leggings and undies in one go.
Midnight sleet assaults my bare ass, followed by the savage slap of an open palm.
I gulp, choking on a string of obscenities as he strikes again.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
My hands fall to his leg, pushing against those powerful muscles and going nowhere.
The blows keep coming as the sounds of his hand hitting flesh echo through the valley.
“You’re so goddamn impulsive.” Slap. “And mouthy.” Thwack. “And infuriating.”
Every smarting swat tugs and yanks at the ugly mess inside me. He’s pulling me apart in the cruelest way, and man, that pisses me off.
“If you’re going to hit me,” I spit, “be a tough guy and use your injured hand.”
“And bratty.” Pop. “And impossibly, irresistibly, extraordinarily beautiful.” Whack. Whack. Whack. “You make me want things I’ve never dared to hope or dream.” Thwack. “You terrify me.”
That last part steals my air—his words, the emotion behind his snarl, and the extra hard smack he delivers at the end.
My body shivers and burns. Or maybe that’s just the welts on my backside. Either way, I’m fraying, dissolving, coming apart at the seams.
My nose stings. My head pounds. A fist closes around my throat, and my eyes…Fuck me, my eyes are leaking.
All that work I put in, the effort I made to keep it buried deep, he’s undoing it all with a stupid fucking spanking.
And his confession.
His confession isn’t stupid at all.
It’s devastating.
“I don’t want to do this.” My voice breaks on a sob. “No, please. I don’t want this. Goddamn you, I’m trying to keep it together.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He runs a hot palm across my buttocks, back and forth, inflaming raw skin. “But you don’t need to keep it together. Not if you have a safe place to fall apart. Let me be that place.”
He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He won’t stay. Ruthless men don’t keep their promises.
Fighting it, fighting him, I curl over his lap and swallow the sounds. But the harder I resist, the louder the cries come, and the faster the tears fall.
“I’m here.” He yanks up my pants, putting my clothes back in place. Then he hauls me to my knees and touches his lips to my eyelids, my nose, the corners of my mouth, peppering kisses everywhere the tears run. “Let go. I promise I won’t leave you again.”
I don’t let go. But it breaks free anyway. That fast, the crank slips, releasing, spinning, unwinding all I’ve packed away, unraveling too quickly, too violently, cracking me apart from the inside out. I can’t stop it, my tears pouring, rushing out in great heaving sobs.
As promised, he scoops me into his arms and gathers me across his hard thighs. Weeks of grief and rage wrench from my stomach, my chest, my throat, gagging out in miserable, pathetic waves. I bury my face in his fur coat, muffling my cries, clinging to his strength, drowning in his smell, and sinking into his warmth.
Goddammit, he holds me just right, so fucking tight, caressing my back and dragging his nose through my hair. I’m beyond vulnerable, miles past embarrassed. I feel beaten to a pulp, buried beneath the underworld, slamming against the wall of a coffin with no way out.
It hurts so much the pain can’t keep up.
“Frankie.” Whispering my name, he digs strong fingers into the knots in my neck.
Knots I didn’t know I have.
He rubs and massages and works magic on my tense muscles, moving down my back and returning to my shoulders. Slow circles with firm fingers. The pressure is diabolical, the rhythm, the placement, every perfectly-aimed digit designed to soothe and dissolve me into bonelessness.
My breathing slows. My pulse steadies. My tears saturate his throat, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just keeps massaging until my crying tapers into sniffles.
I need water. And food. But more than that, I’m tired.
So damn tired of fighting.
“I had a plan.” No, I still have a plan. “I need to see it through.”
“We’ll make a new plan.” Lips to my temple, he breathes out a soft kiss. “You’re not doing this alone.”
“Why not?”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again.” I wipe the wetness from my frozen cheeks.
“You’re one of us. We’re family.”
“Do you spank all your family members?”
“Only the redheads.”
“Was that…?” I lean back, taking in his sulky expression. “Did the dark Lycan prince make a joke?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I want to smile. I want to forget why there’s a hole in my chest and fill the emptiness with happy things, easy things, flirting-with-a-grumpy-sexy-man things, and pretend all the other things don’t exist.
But they do exist.
They’re waiting at the cabin.
“Why am I on your lap?” When he doesn’t answer, I shift my hips. “I feel you, Kody. Hard as steel. That monster cock doesn’t lie. Do you get off on my tears?”