Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
SIX
Ambrielle was crying. Well, damn. Master stood on the deck listening to her heart-wrenching weeping, feeling as if he’d just stepped into a very private moment that was defining in some way. A big way. He could slink away and pretend he hadn’t found her. He wanted to take the coward’s way out, tell himself she’d left their bedroom to be alone to cry. She had the right to privacy. Most people didn’t want others around when they cried. Ambrielle was most likely one of those. She was a compassionate little thing and wouldn’t want to disturb him.
Yeah, right. He could talk himself out of anything. He didn’t know the first thing about relationships because he’d never been in one, but he watched Czar and Blythe, and it seemed the little things Czar did for Blythe were worth far more to her than any grand gesture. Ambrielle might not feel the same, but Master was determined he would find the right path with her. It was just that . . . tears were manipulation.
He’d been taught that shit in prison. In Sorbacov’s school for his “assets.” Code word for assassins. Master was a damn good assassin. His woman wanted someone dead, he’d kill the son of a bitch for her, but tears . . . He’d never done tears very well. He’d never done them at all.
He half turned to go back into the house but stopped abruptly. He’d never backed down from anything he wanted in his life. He’d never walked away. He fought hard for everything he’d ever gotten—and that wasn’t very much because, truthfully, he wanted very little. But Ambrielle . . . he wanted her. And he wanted her happy. She wasn’t a manipulator. He had sized her up before he’d ever agreed to marry her. Then he continued to assess her character before he took the entire marriage seriously. Now he was serious. He was her husband, and she was crying. It might be a small thing to someone else, but to him it was enormous.
Master caught up the blanket she’d discarded on the glider facing the forest and approached her silently. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and pulled her tight against his body. “Too cold out here. Your muscles are going to get stiff. You won’t be able to walk.”
She dashed at the tears on her face as if afraid to be caught crying, convincing him he was right—this was no manipulation. “I can’t go back inside.”
He pushed down his visceral reaction to her shaky statement and concentrated on her shivering body instead. He wasn’t going to make this about him. He didn’t need her to say she was regretting her decision to marry him. That he was far too rough for her. That he was a killer—anyone could see that, and she couldn’t live with him. He didn’t need to hear her regrets. He only needed to support her. She’d been through hell. He knew what hell was like.
He caught her up, wrapped in the blanket like a burrito, cradling her close to his chest, and carried her to the glider, where he settled his ass down, her on his lap, arms tight around her. Pressing her face to his shoulder, he began to rock her gently. “Cry all you want, Ambrie. No one can hear you but me. We can stay out here for the rest of the night if you prefer.”
She pulled one arm out from the blanket and wrapped it around his neck. “I don’t know why you’re so good to me when I can’t stop crying. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry until after I killed Walker, but I can’t stop. When we were together, I could put the way they murdered my parents out of my mind and just fill my world with you, but the moment I’m alone, I can’t stop seeing them with blood all over them. I couldn’t get to them in time to stop them from being murdered.”
The anguish in her voice was heartbreaking. He wasn’t the kind of man to let that kind of thing get to him. He was stone. Steel. He had to be. But she was twisting him up inside. He kept the chair moving gently back and forth and let her talk. She needed to get it out. Her body was shuddering, although her weeping was quiet. He felt the tears running down his chest, so he knew she was shedding them. Just silently.
“Then what do I do? I enjoy myself. Not just enjoy myself, I lose myself in you, totally, completely. I can’t think of anything but you. I’m so mindless, so wrapped up in the orgasms you give me, that there’s nothing but us. You and me. I want more. Your body. Anything you can give me. Teach me. I just want us alone right here, in a little cocoon where no one can reach us. What does that say about me? What kind of person am I? There’s blood all over my wedding dress and my parents are murdered and all I can think about is having more sex with you.”