Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46674 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46674 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I feel like singing when the sentence screams out in my mind.
I’m not a virgin anymore.
I want to run a lap around the estate and dance and throw a freaking party.
But now my man is striding away, heading for the door.
He’s so uncomfortable with intimacy – clearly – that he slept in his shoes.
“Wait,” I call, sitting up and pulling the sheets around my chin.
He pauses at the door with his back to me, fists clenched, his back moving up and down to show me the intensity of his breathing.
“What?” he growls.
“I know who you are,” I say, the only thing I can think to keep him here. “I know you’re at war. I know you and Dad were friends.”
He turns slowly, his volcanic eyes glaring at me.
“What else do you know?”
“Why don’t you come and sit down and we’ll talk about it?” I say.
He smirks. “Are you giving the orders now?”
“No,” I say, my voice suddenly biting. “I’m asking you a question. And I think it’s the least you can do after I gave you my virginity, don’t you?”
He laughs grimly, pacing back over to the bed, standing over me with the lamplight making his iron facial hair glimmer.
“You didn’t give me anything,” he says. “I took it. And I’ll take you again, any time and anyway I damn well please.”
Do it, a voice deep within cries. We need more of his seed. There can never be too much.
“You said you wouldn’t take me without consent.”
“I’d never need to do that,” he says, with a passing smirk. “You’re too much of a horny girl for that.”
“Well, if you don’t at least sit down and have a conservation with me, we’ll see about that,” I snap.
“Such sass,” he chuckles.
“I deserve to know what’s going on,” I say softly, and again the urge rises inside of me to tell him about my dreams of children, of us belonging together.
I fight them fiercely, battering them down with everything I have.
He sighs and drops onto the end of the bed. He glances at me with fierce light glinting in his eyes, making me see things for a long moment that surely aren’t there.
It’s like he’s having the same crazy feelings that I am, the same surreal notions dancing around his alpha’s mind.
No, I scream in my head, battering those thoughts down. Stop being stupid.
But then why is he still here?
He’s already gotten what he wanted, surely.
“What do you want to know?” he says sternly.
“Where were you last night?” I say the first question that pops into my head. “Why did you come to me so late? What were you doing—”
“Enough,” he sighs, but not with his usual fierceness.
It’s like the sex has changed things between us.
“I get it. Fine. Fuck it. It’s not like you can do anything with the information, anyway.”
He pauses, his jaw becoming tight, his gaze flitting over me. I make sure the sheet is pulled up around my breasts.
As insane as it seems, I know he might pounce on me if he saw my exposed breasts.
And despite how badly I want that – it’s a constant ache, my sex screaming for another round – I need to know what’s going on.
“I was questioning the men who were involved in your kidnapping,” he says.
“Wait … why would you be doing that? Didn’t you order it?”
He stares hard.
I let out a gasp, reading his expression, the meaning in his dark intense eyes.
“You didn’t order it,” I say.
He shakes his head slowly. “One of my men went rogue. Now that man is missing. I needed to find out what was going on. It took longer than I would’ve liked, but in the end, I got to the bottom of it.”
“And?”
“And what?” he growls. “It’s Family business. You don’t need to know.”
“Are you going to keep me in the dark for the rest of our lives?” I hiss.
Oh, no.
The words just came out of me, a lightning bolt of passion that I couldn’t control.
I wish I could snatch the words back, but it’s too late.
Something flits across his face, but he lets the comment pass.
“A government agency has been working behind the scenes to force your father and me to go to war,” he says. “I don’t know all the details, but that was why you were kidnapped—an attempt to make the war worse. They seem to want the streets to devolve into mayhem. Maybe so they can move in on our turf. Maybe so they can entrap us and prove we’re the monsters they wish we were.”
Using one hand to hold up the sheet, I reach across with the other and place my hand atop his where it rests on the sheets. He flinches as though he’s going to snatch it away, but then grows still, letting me clutch onto the powerful force of his hand.