Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
The powerful engine of the flashy car that roared into the hotel drive might have turned heads, but I figured I still would have felt the shift in the air even if he hadn’t made a sound. The way my chest tightened and my heartbeats flew.
It was the same way I’d felt like I was falling into a fathomless sea of torment when I’d begun to descend those stairs last night.
As if the ground no longer existed below me.
From the moment I’d met Logan Lawson, he’d made it difficult to stand on my own two feet. The ground quaking below, the shockwaves that swept through my body a flood, knocking me from sense and safety.
Steeling myself to the impact of the man, I pasted on that façade as I strode out the door and into the glacial cold of the snowy mountain morning. Vapor streamed from the tailpipes of Logan’s car, and I nearly stumbled a step when he pushed to standing from the driver’s side.
He was so intimidatingly beautiful he made me fumble.
Heart and soul.
My stomach a fist of old, old want.
Malachite eyes found me through the icy air, unreadable, hardened stones that glinted cold. He wore a fitted suit and a smirk on his face.
“Good morning, darling.” It was pure condescension as he rounded the front of his car.
The ground shifted again, cracks that raced out ahead of him.
The man a tornado that had torn up my world.
“I pray you slept well.” His gaze raked me like razors. I wondered if he’d still relish in my torment if he’d borne witness to every distressed sob that’d left my throat last night.
“I’ve had better nights.” I attempted to keep my voice even.
“I’m sure you have.” His mouth was near my ear when he murmured the innuendo, a carrot dangled to drag me back into the past.
Too bad my heart still remained there.
He set his hand on the small of my back to guide me to his car. Even though I wore the thick coat, I might as well have been bare.
Flesh to flesh.
I tried to suppress the shiver and sank down into the warmth of the heated leather seats. I was slapped in the face by his aura, the cab a dangerous concoction of corruption and clove.
There was no turning away from his shape as he moved back around the front of the car and slipped into the seat next to me.
Everything amplified.
Multiplied.
His scent that mixed with a tinge of something sweet.
Attraction flashed.
Skimmed my flesh.
Something so alive it couldn’t be killed no matter how badly it needed to be.
Logan glanced my way. In that bare beat, I swore I saw a million things.
Regret.
Sadness.
Pain.
But it hardened so fast I had to have been imagining it. Searching for something that just wasn’t there.
He put the car into drive, and the tires squealed as he hit the street.
Everything was bated, stilled and slowed and coiled as he blew down the road toward the airport on the outskirts of the small city.
I did my best to take it in. To remember this place where Logan had found sanctuary. At least, I hoped he had because the venom that poured from his body as he took sharp turns and gunned the accelerator made me think he’d found no peace.
That maybe he’d spent the entire night tossing, too.
Redemption Hills was quaint, quiet, and beautiful. A million miles away from what I knew.
It was strange how Los Angeles always shouted so loud, how it never slept, how the night cried out and day was a constant crush of people and sounds.
It should be impossible to feel alone in the thick of it, but it’s what I’d found.
My reality a lifetime of loneliness.
Of faked smiles and forged pleasantries.
They were my only weapons. Weapons that had kept me alive.
I wondered if I’d ever recognized it as distinctly as I did right then.
The stark opposition.
How when I was with Logan, I felt consumed.
I felt like I was being burned alive as I sat in the seat next to him.
Each breath.
Each movement.
Each stolen glance.
Well, the thieving was all on me.
As hard as I tried not to look at him, I kept peering that way. At the chiseled cut of his cheekbone, the rugged set of his jaw, and the strong profile of his brow. His sharp nose and his full, plush lips.
The way he looked feral as he drove, a sleek beast, a panther that was pure stealth as he hunted.
The man was art in the seat, one hand on the wheel while the other tapped out a controlled dance on his thigh.
Questions burned on my tongue. I wanted to ask him so much. About his life and how he was and if he’d found love—even if it’d drive a stake through my heart.
I wanted to ask him if it’d been worth it.