Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
“Thank you.” I squeezed her hand back. “You’ve been so kind to me.”
She smiled and kissed my cheek. “Once you’re both secure in your new affection, please do what Rhodes suggested and return. I need to hear how you just broke a Dom. How you came here with no man and ended up with one chasing after you. I need to know your story, Tia.”
Nick rounded on her, hearing the final parts of our conversation. With his face stern and eyes swimming with possession, he tugged me into his side and staked every claim he could. “Her name is Ella, and she’s mine. The only story you need to know is...she didn’t just break me tonight, she broke me the moment I opened the door to my new rental and found her hanging a welcome sign over the mantel for me. She turned to face me, lost her balance, and fell off the chair she was standing on. I dropped my bags and caught her. And the moment she landed in my arms, I knew.”
He looked at me, his face etched with stern, savage affection. “I knew the moment she looped her arms around my neck and gave me all her trust. So freely. So fully. No one had ever trusted me with their life before. It’s her fault that this urge awoke inside me. This need to possess her, all because she possessed me.” Forgetting we were surrounded by people, he murmured only for me, “You gave me something I didn’t know I needed.”
“Said like a man who’s always needed to be needed,” Rhodes said quietly.
Nicholas didn’t look at him, his hazel eyes locked on mine. “I want you, Ella. So fucking much.”
The club faded around us. My new friends vanished from my attention.
All I saw was him.
His domination and his desperation.
His power and his weakness.
“Then take me home, Master.”
All the softness, all the wary tenderness in him snapped back into fierce authority. Fisting the leash around my throat, he glowered at those watching us, then bowed his head at Ella and Rhodes. “We’re leaving. Goodbye.”
Yanking me forward by the belt, he pulled me up the steps, out the door, and into the clean night air.
Voices trailed us.
Laughter and knowing whispers.
“Remember your safe word, Tia!” Ella shouted after me. “You’re gonna need it!”
I gasped.
Nick groaned.
He pushed me into his black Ford and drove us home.
Chapter Sixteen
THE DOOR CLOSED QUIETLY BEHIND US, TRAPPING us into our shared house, blocking out the world and keeping our sinful secrets.
Nick hadn’t spoken a word the entire drive home, but that hadn’t stopped our bodies from shouting. Tension built and built until I had a permanent case of goosebumps and ached exquisitely painfully between my legs.
He didn’t drive too fast or too slow.
His hands strangled the steering wheel; his eyes narrowed on the road.
His belt still fastened around my throat.
I’d done my best to come up with something to ease the stinging, sizzling awareness between us, but...each time I opened my mouth, only air came out.
Should I apologise for going to the club?
Should I thank him for coming after me?
What was going on inside that head of his?
I jumped as the front door clicked into place before the deadbolt slid home. Looking over my shoulder, I caught Nicholas’s stare.
Every question, every worry, every thought...all vanished in a puff of smoke.
No hazel now, just green. Blazing, smouldering green full of fury and desire. With bronze hair tumbling over his forehead and lips framed by a manicured short beard, I’d never seen a more handsome man or a more terrifying beast.
My heart rate soared as I spun around to face him, keeping my eyes on the dangerous predator I’d invited into my heart, all while tripping backward in my patent heels until my ass hit the back of the couch.
I froze. “Nick...I’m sorry.”
He bared his teeth as he stalked toward me. “Sorry? You’re sorry. What are you sorry for, Ella? Are you sorry you stripped for me this afternoon, then went to a club for another man to taste you? Sorry that you forced me to spend a day from hell wondering if I had the strength to come after you? Sorry that you forced me to watch another man proposition you...again? Sorry you forced me to accept pieces of myself that I’m still not ready to accept? Or...” Unthreading his belt and yanking it off my neck, he tossed it to the floor, then curled his hand tightly around my throat. “Are you sorry you forced me to fall in love with you?”
I gasped as he squeezed.
I longed to touch him back. To be soft in the face of his hardness. To melt his coldness with warmth he desperately needed.
But...just as I’d known when I’d offered him my mouth after Spectacle of Secrets—if I gave him soft now, I’d lose him.