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)
My brow furrowed. “We aren’t a moral obligation.”
“No, you’re not, Hailey.” He gathered up my free hand and splayed my palm over where the tattoo was seated in the middle of his chest. “I think you’re my heart’s obligation.”
I blinked, trying to process through what he was saying.
Part of me wanted to dive into the safety of it. Get lost in this incredibly kind man who seemed ready to surrender it all.
The other part urged me to run.
Terrified that falling into it would only be asking for more trouble.
Everything at risk. On the line.
It was so much and so soon, and I knew he wanted to be there for us, but I didn’t think he had the first clue of what that really was going to mean.
Hell, neither did I. There was no certainty of what we’d be facing.
I’d been hoping that Pruitt was here to play the victim. Going to my father and acting the good guy when he was nothing but a villain.
Deranged.
Drunk on power and money.
But I couldn’t rest in the hope of that any longer.
And I didn’t know how to fix it. Where to go from here. I’d been set on facing this head-on, but I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough.
Brave enough.
I wanted to be.
I wanted to stand like Cody and claim the one thing that my heart was aching for.
Because I did feel it. I’d felt the power that had pulled between us since the first time I’d turned to find him standing in the moving truck. Had felt it all those years ago, even though I’d buried it in a grave of sorrow and shame and remorse.
I pulled my hand away from where he had it pinned to the raging at his chest, and I started dabbing at the wounds on his face again, gently cleaning the blood away, my heart cracking further when I forced myself to whisper, “I’m wondering if maybe I should take Maddie away from here. Someplace where Pruitt is not.”
I might as well have been dragging a dull blade across my flesh as I said it.
Tormented at the thought of walking away from here.
Walking away from him.
Cody had me pinned against the wall so fast I didn’t even realize what had happened.
A raging fortress that towered over me.
Eclipsing reason and sight.
Big hands gripped me by both sides of the face, and he leaned down, his voice near to a growl. “You want to run, Hailey? Then I’ll run with you. You want to fight? Then I’ll fight for you. But what I’m not willing to do is let you go. Not when you’re doing it out of fear.”
“I’ve been afraid for years, Cody. For years. And now—”
“And now you have me.”
He swooped down and captured my mouth, stealing the terror from my lungs. Swallowing it as he kissed me deeper, those hands on my face holding me firm and sure.
His tongue stroked over mine.
A demand.
An oath.
Lightheadedness swept through my head, and my knees went weak.
I was overwhelmed.
Taken.
Destitute.
Found.
“You’re hurt,” I warned between the necessity of his kiss.
“Don’t care,” he muttered as he gripped me by the back of the neck to control the angle.
There was nothing I could do. No way to resist. No way to stop this.
I dropped the washcloth to the floor and held onto his wrists, silently begging him to hold me up.
Which was such bullshit when he was the one who’d suffered because of me.
He’d taken the brunt.
And here he was, this man who I’d once thought so selfish who was pouring every ounce of who he was into me.
Beauty and light and belief.
Offering it.
Giving it.
Energy lashed, and that connection pulsed and pulled, seeking a way out from the fractured places inside me.
Ribbons that weaved through the cracks and wound within.
Filling the cavities and depressions with a paradigm unlike any I’d ever known.
“Fuck, Hailey. I think I forget how to breathe without you,” he rumbled between the frenzy.
His lips passion.
His touch devotion.
His tongue greed.
I was so close to falling over the edge. So close to this heart sitting fully in the palms of his massive hands.
Hands that slipped down my back until he was taking me by the backside and dragging me against the solid planes of his body.
Flames erupted at the contact, and I gasped.
Cody only kissed me deeper.
Harder.
Possessive in his consuming.
He pulled me from the wall and walked me backward out of the bathroom. He peeled my shirt over my head as we went, and I did the same, my fingers racing up his abdomen, his chest, careful as I worked the ruined fabric over his head.
He didn’t wince, he only groaned as he urged me farther into my room.
He jerked at the buttons of my jeans, then he was shoving them down. I was quick to work the rest of the way out of them, kicking them off my ankles as I tugged at his fly.