Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
And I realize that we’ve both been under the spell of Abraham Van Brunt.
Chapter 16
Crane
One year ago
I can’t stop staring. Not at the man who has been coming into the opium joint for the last few nights. He never speaks to anyone, except a few words to the Meister, who arranges his pipe for him. Then he takes his pipe and sits in the furthest corner, disappearing into the dark until all you see of him are puffs of smoke and the occasional shine of his black eyes. There’s nothing unusual about a single man coming in here and lying down in one of the beds or on a rug on the floor and smoking for hours, and yet, I can’t help but be drawn to this one.
It doesn’t hurt that he’s beautiful. Tall, with wide boulder-like shoulders, and when he takes off his coat, you can see how much muscle he has. He’s just brimming with power, the kind that makes me wet my lips. And then there’s his longish hair, his beard, those eyes of his that are so brown they’re like teak and ebony. All of these things call to me. Makes my cock jump to attention, even when the opium is competing for my body’s attention.
But that’s not why I’m so fixated on him these last few days. It’s because when he’s in the corner of the room, he’s not blissfully unaware of the world like everyone else seems to be. He’s watching. He sits there and smokes, and he watches everything.
He watches me.
Just as I watch him.
Except he looks like he’s watching for something. Or he’s running away from something. The only difference between him and the rest of us users is that he’s not running away from himself.
I put my pipe down and get up, moving through the haze of smoke and across the room until I’m standing right in front of him.
“Can’t help but notice you’ve been staring at me,” I say.
He tilts his head back and glares up at me. His eyes could cut through steel.
“I think you have it the other way around,” he says. His voice is gravelly and rough and stirs something primal inside me.
“Perhaps we’ve both been staring at each other,” I say to him. I crouch down so that I’m at his level. I can’t see him much better because of the shadows he’s in, but the energy just radiates off of him. Dark and wicked and all the things I love, all the things I’ve neglected.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He puts the pipe to his mouth and inhales. He lets the smoke fall out slowly, his eyes locked on mine. “Abe,” he says eventually.
“No last name?”
“Don’t need one here.”
“Well, I’m Ichabod Crane,” I tell him.
“Ichabod,” he says through a cough, his dark eyes becoming heavy-lidded. “You don’t hear that name too often.”
“You can call me Crane,” I tell him. “If it pleases you.”
And if you want to please me, you can call me Daddy.
“What would please me is if you got the fuck out of my face and left me alone.”
I grin at him. “That’s a nasty mouth you’ve got there. Care to put it to good use?”
He lets out a low growl and attempts to get up and perhaps tackle or punch me, but the drug has him in its grip. I merely push back on his rock-hard shoulders until he’s against the wall.
“You’re new at this, aren’t you, pretty boy?” I say, leaning into him. I’m straddling him now, my knees planted on either side of his hips. He gnashes his teeth together like a rabid dog, but his movements are too slow. “A pretty little animal who doesn’t know his limits.”
“Fuck you,” he snarls.
I just give him a half-smile.
“I’ll tell you what, Abe,” I say to him. “I’ll leave you alone, and you can continue to smoke yourself into a stupor, but answer me this one question.”
He lets out a raspy growl as an answer.
“Are you in any danger?” I ask gravely.
He goes quiet at that, blinks at me like he doesn’t really see me. I know questioning people when they’re high isn’t the best way to get information, but I can’t help myself. Something in me wants to find the threads that are barely holding him together and unravel him.
“Why do you say that?” he manages to say thickly.
“Because I see it in you,” I tell him. “I see many things in you. I know you’re running away from someone. Something, perhaps? And that you’re having a hard time finding peace, thinking that death and danger are lurking around every corner. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
He watches me for a second, his eyes growing heavy. “It is that way.”
Hmmm. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s not giving up his secrets to a stranger. Against my better judgment, I reach out and grab his hand and try to read him.