Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
“Hold me until morning,” I whispered there, to that clock frozen at eight-seventeen.
He brushed his lips across my forehead and held me tighter. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I’m not going to let go.”
TWENTY-NINE
CODY
The faintest glimmer of morning pushed at the window, streams of glitter and dust that played through the room nudging me from sleep. I inhaled, filling my nostrils with the scent of strawberries and cream, and I couldn’t help but smile when I realized my nose was burrowed in Hailey’s hair.
I tightened my hold on her where she was already tucked into the well of my arms, the way she’d been the entire night, her head rested on my chest.
Her spirit all around as her breaths remained even and long as she slept.
Peace.
I wondered how I could feel even a flicker of it when I knew I was nothing but a monster for taking her. It wasn’t like my circumstances had miraculously changed, although it felt like everything was different.
A cosmic shift taking place somewhere in my consciousness.
Got the sense my being no longer fully belonged to me.
It’d been fractured.
Fragmented.
Those jagged pieces given to someone else.
I eased back enough that I could gaze at her precious face. Long, full lashes shadowed her cheeks, and her eyes twitched beneath her pale, delicate lids like she was long lost to a dream. Those plush, full lips were softly pursed, like my name still rested there.
Fuck me, she was pretty. Pretty in a way that shifted orbits because her beauty was so big and deep there was no fucking chance it wouldn’t seep all the way out.
Shine like the sun.
A gravity that compelled.
It stole my goddamned breath every time I looked at her.
Punched me in the gut.
Twisted me up in some kind of elaborate origami until I became something else.
Hers.
My chest tightened with the force of it.
This awareness…this need.
This purpose.
Leave it to Karma that it’d be Hailey Wagner who’d confound me this way. Knock me clean from my foundation. Make me turn on every oath I’d ever made.
I was an idiot for thinking I could touch her and this wouldn’t end badly, but it didn’t fucking matter.
She was worth it.
Before I allowed myself to get consumed by another bolt of lust, I carefully eased out from under her and settled her onto her pillow, doing my best not to disturb her since there was no question she was spent.
I crept around her bed, trying to keep my footsteps quieted, though there wasn’t a chance my weight wouldn’t make the floor creak.
I glanced back at her as I pulled on my sweats where they were in a ball on her floor. The woman was so gorgeous where she lay lost to the abyss of sleep with the kiss of gold skittering across her flesh.
My damned heart clutched.
Thrashed in my chest.
Blowing out the strain, I tugged my shirt over my head then slipped to her door. Carefully, I cracked it open and peered out.
A stilled silence echoed back.
Thank fuck.
I slinked out, just as cautiously, and I clicked the door shut behind me before I started to tiptoe across the floor toward the couch where I’d left the blanket tossed aside last night.
“And just where do you think you’re sneaking off to?” I nearly hit the roof with the voice that suddenly broke the silence.
A shout got free, aggression whipping a stir into my bloodstream, and I whirled toward my right.
My hand smacked down over my heart like it was going to keep it from jumping out when my fumbled brain finally came to the comprehension that it was only Lolly.
The old woman let loose a knowing grin. Her lips were already painted red, and she wore a satin floral robe as she sipped from a mug where she sat at the small round table under the window that overlooked the front.
“Someone’s jumpy,” she said, so damned sly.
“Yeah, that’s because you nearly scared the pants off me,” I grumbled.
Sure, I was relieved it wasn’t an intruder I was going to have to take down first thing in the morning, though that relief wasn’t lasting long with the way she was watching me.
My pulse thundered, and I scraped a shaking hand through my hair that had likely dried sticking up all over the place since Hailey had been tugging at it last night.
I dug around in my brain for an excuse. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been caught sneaking out of a woman’s door or window a time or two in the past, and I always managed to come out unscathed.
But I didn’t think I’d ever felt as exposed as right then. Like I’d been caught doing something illicit all while feeling like holding Hailey was exactly what I’d been created to do.
Lolly’s eyes gleamed. “I’m surprised you’re wearing them.”
Agitation lit me up, and I shifted from foot to foot. “I was just…”