Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“Now I know you weren’t listening,” she cuts me off.
“I was, but when you discussed your dorm room in boarding school, you lost me.”
Phoenix gives me a timid smile. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay, I want to hear about it. We have nothing else to talk about it, so your dorm room isn’t awful …”
“Why don’t you tell me what you were thinking about?” she says, moving closer and taking my hand in hers.
“Because I can’t,” I admit.
“Why?”
I pull my hand away from hers and look at her—well, stare is more like it. Her eyes go wide with understanding.
“You were thinking about my father.”
I nod.
“You were thinking about the war?”
I nod again.
“I know that this might sound strange, but do you want to talk about it?”
I cock my head this time and stare at her, really stare. “You want me to talk about why I want your father dead with you?”
She bites her lower lip. “I mean, if it’s eating you up …”
“You would do that … for me?” I ask, not really understanding her at this moment. This is the man who saved her, and she wants me to discuss my feelings about him.
“Do I want you to hate him? No. Do I want to convince you that you shouldn’t? Yes.”
“That will not happen.”
She lifts her hand. “I’m not saying it will. What I’m saying is, if I have my druthers, I would convince you otherwise, but since that’s not going to happen, you can at least talk to me about it and explain.”
“Explain what? That he killed my brother. There’s really not much to explain.”
Her mouth opens and shuts.
Instead of waiting for her to speak, I reach for her and pull her onto my lap.
“Dove, I don’t want to bring that up here. I don’t want to talk about real life here.”
I look down at her. I know it hurts her for me to hate the man she loves so much, but it doesn’t stop it from being true. It doesn’t stop me from wanting revenge.
“But—”
“No buts. We are living in a different reality right now. Why bring the actual world into it? Why tarnish this? Can’t we just live in the moment right now?”
At my words, her shoulders hunch forward, and she remains quiet. The silence stretches before she must mull over my words and decide I’m right because she looks back up at me. There’s no mistaking my words hurt her, but neither of us can do anything on that front right now, so there’s no point in talking about it.
“Agree not to mention it again,” I say, placing a soft feathery kiss on her lips.
“Okay,” she mumbles.
I sweep my tongue over the seam of her mouth.
“I can think of much better ways to spend our time.”
“Is that so?” she purrs.
“Yes. If you’re bored, I can entertain you …” My words hang in the air, dripping with innuendo.
“And what exactly can you do to entertain me?” Her hands reach around my body until she holds me closer.
“I can make you forget your name.”
“But can you make me forget yours?”
“Never,” I rasp, and then I force her mouth open with my tongue and plunge into its warmth.
She moans into the kiss, and I deepen it.
This is a much better use of our time together. There is no need to burden ourselves with the rest. There are too many things outside our control.
This is enough for now.
We kiss for a long time until we are both panting and needing more.
Still naked, I position her on top of me, straddling my lap, and then she slides down onto my cock.
The feeling of being wrapped up in her warmth is perfection.
It makes the world fade away.
She is more potent than any drug. I’m completely intoxicated by her.
With each rise and fall of her hips, I’m lost to her.
Completely and utterly lost.
35
Phoenix
I stretch my hands over my head and let out a large and probably dramatic yawn.
It’s been a few days since the storm hit, and it’s still going strong. Whenever the winds die down, we quickly bathe ourselves in the lake. It’s not ideal, but we make do.
Thankfully, we had a lot of fish, since we can’t go looking for more food. But it also solidifies that once this storm is over, we will have to spend days recouping the food we ate before we can even consider escaping.
It’s scary.
A part of me thinks we should stay here.
But this island isn’t ideal.
Although the cave is helpful, we can’t stay here indefinitely.
Alaric seems confident we’ll find another island, as long as we have enough food and water to last ten days. According to him and the map he showed me on the boat, there are plenty of islands near where we are.
He says that even if no one finds us, we should be able to find shelter on another island regardless, and maybe that one will have a better food supply.