Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71200 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71200 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. Because everything he’s saying is absolutely true.
And I don’t understand how he knows any of it.
We’ve barely spoken about ourselves. I mean, there was some idle chatter, some post-sex pillow talk about ourselves, but I don’t remember saying any of that.
He barely asks me questions. Most of the time, he acts like I don’t exist. And now to find out that he’s been paying that close attention, it’s like I’ve tumbled off a cliff, and I’m still spinning mid-air.
“Supernatural isn’t that bad,” I whisper.
“Here’s what you don’t understand,” he says, moving closer to me until my fingers brush against his muscular abdomen. “It’s all here, all deep in here.” He moves my hand up until it’s touching his chest. “I don’t show it. I don’t let it out. But I’m holding it all inside, and it’s always there.”
“What is?” I manage.
“How much I care.”
His words feel like fireworks blowing up in my skull. How much Liam Crowley cares? I didn’t know he was capable of that emotion. I always assumed Liam drifted through the word, bending it to his iron will, not giving a damn about anything around him so long as he got what he wanted. I figured I’m a useful little asset, but nothing more. Something to be discarded.
But he knows me. He feels me.
“Since when?” I ask, trying to understand.
“At first, I was intrigued by you.” He tightens his grip on my wrist, pressing my hand tighter against his chest. “You fascinated me. I desired you in a way I shouldn’t have. Then I wanted more, but that was dangerous. Instead of letting myself be around you, instead of indulging my weakness for you, I studied you instead from afar. I kept my distance, but I also fell deeper.”
“Studied me?” I lift my chin. “Like a test in school?”
“Like an obsession.”
“You researched me. You learned about me. But why?”
“Because it was like taking methadone for a heroin addiction. It eased the desire. It didn’t replace the need—it wouldn’t replace the pure want I felt—but it took the edge away. Made my days manageable.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To help you understand.” He raises my hand up to his cheek. I hold it there for only a moment before pulling away. He doesn’t try to stop me. “When I say that you are mine, I mean that you are mine.”
“This is too much.” I push past him, feeling trapped, and head to the door. He lets me go, doesn’t try to stop me. “You’re telling me that all this time you’ve been feeling this way, and you never said anything to me?”
“I know this may be hard for you to understand, but I keep my promises. I swore to you that you’d get your revenge, and when this was all over, you could leave me. If I had let myself taste further, keep tasting you, keep having you—” He stops, but he doesn’t need to keep talking.
It would’ve been feeding the addiction. Sooner or later, he would’ve gotten so deeply attached that he never would’ve been able to let me go. Or at least that was his fear.
It’s crazy. I can’t picture it. Yes, Liam’s intense, and yes, the couple times we slept together was great. But he’s been ignoring me for weeks, acting like I don’t exist.
Can I really believe this explanation?
“I need to think,” I say, rubbing my face. “I don’t know what to feel right now.”
“You don’t have to feel anything,” he says, his voice gentle. “You’re my wife now. You’re carrying my first child. You’re a Crowley. That’s all.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“And it doesn’t matter what you agreed to. Not anymore.” He turns to the bathroom. “Now, I’m going to shower. If my wife wants to be in my bed waiting for when I get out, that would please me.”
I let out an ugly laugh. “You think I care about pleasing you right now? You just told me you’re like obsessed with me, and also that I’m trapped with you. Kind of still processing here.”
He shrugs slightly. “I can wait if that’s what it takes.”
“I want my contract back. I want our old deal.”
“The old deal is gone. If you want to be in our bed—”
“Your bed. I’m sleeping in the other room.”
He tilts his head. “You keep on making the wrong choice.”
“Oh, go to hell, you arrogant bastard.” I let my temper flare up again and immediately regret it, but Liam doesn’t seem to mind. I turn and storm out, heading back to the guest room and leaving him alone.
Liam says he’s obsessed. He says it’s like a drug. He kept his distance so that he didn’t make things worse—all with the idea that he’d let me go once our deal was done.
But now that deal’s finished.