Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“You’ll want to go out the rear,” Lyric said, pointing to the fire door. “That alley is really quiet so you’ll be able to dematerialize easily. Rhamp, take her out so she’s safe.”
“Yup, absolutely.” The female’s brother put his martini down. “Come on, Bitty, I gotchu.”
Rhamp did up the button on his slick suit jacket, slipped a friendly arm around her shoulders, and walked her up the steps and around the sitting area. Just as they came to the exit, one of his boys called his name.
“Wait here a sec,” he said as he started to go back.
At that moment, the music changed beat, and it was like someone in the sound booth had turned the volume up. When her stomach rolled and she felt a little dizzy, she punched the bar on the steel panel and—
“Oh, thank God,” she murmured as she went out into the cold and took a deep breath.
The door slammed shut behind her and she released an exhale as if she were a smoker making rings. Her overheated skin basked in the temperature drop, and the wonky feeling dissipated, too. With her relief hitting, she was glad she’d taken a chance, on the dress and the club—
Behind her, the door reopened, the music and laughter flaring, a waft of heat warming her back like a hearth set with a fire.
“Thanks, Rhamp,” she said. “I’ll just head—”
The scent registered first. And then a deep voice rumbled, “Not Rhamp.”
Bitty turned around slowly. L.W. was standing just outside the club, and God… he was huge. It wasn’t just that he towered over her in height, it was the breadth of him. His expression, too. Resting bitch face? More like trained killer, who might, or might not, wait for a private corner to make his move.
His pale green eyes were so unwavering that Bitty had to look away—and as for all of January’s freezing cold? Was it cold? She couldn’t feel anything.
No, that wasn’t exactly true…
“I’ve noticed something about you,” he said.
She tugged at the hem of her dress, thinking that the damn thing seemed tighter and shorter and lower cut. “What might that be.”
“You’re a hugger.”
It was such a non sequitur that she glanced back up at him. “I’m sorry?”
“You hug people, and when you do, you mean it.”
“Oh. Thank you? I guess.”
His eyes traveled down her body. “New dress. You usually wear jeans and sweaters in the winter.”
“How do you know what I wear?”
“I watch you.”
“Why,” she whispered.
The shrug was causal. The light in his eyes was volcanic. The energy coming off his body was…
“You never hug me,” he said.
“I’m sorry, wha—” She cleared her throat and measured his heavy shoulders. “Well, you’re not… exactly the huggable type.”
“No? Why not.”
Her eyes drifted to his chest. There were weapons under his jacket, probably holstered beneath his arms and around his waist. The guns and knives weren’t off-putting; her father was always armed, so she was used to all that. But the idea of getting up close to L.W.’s body, feeling it against her?
He opened his arms. “How about me.”
This was why I had to come, she thought. This moment, right here.
And yet she was frozen by the sense that something was coming, something that was…
After a moment, L.W. lowered his arms. “Fair enough. But I’m staying until you’ve safely dematerialized.”
Bitty shook herself back to attention. “You’ve just surprised me, that’s all.”
“You don’t have to explain.” And he didn’t seem particularly offended. “Have a good night.”
“I don’t know if I can dematerialize.”
“Why not?” He frowned. “Are you ill?”
“No.”
With his hair all but shaved on the sides, and the length of it braided down the center of his head, his face was accentuated, the jaw cut but not heavy, his cheekbones high, his brows somehow always arched with disdain no matter what the bottom half of his visage was doing. Not that she had seen him smile. Ever—
The emergency exit opened abruptly, a blue glow flooding out.
And that was when it happened.
The vision that had vibrated just under the veil of her consciousness broke through into proper awareness, and she saw L.W.’s autocratic face just as it was now, with one side in shadow and the other bathed in a dark-blue illumination. And then—yes, exactly like he was doing now—he looked at whoever was peering out.
“You have a secret,” she heard herself say softly.
L.W.’s head whipped back to her. “What.”
“Something you cannot share… and it’s come home tonight.” She narrowed her eyes as her words came faster and faster. “You need to be careful, L.W. Your anger is your downfall, and that which you were cheated of was stolen by a thief who doesn’t care about its ill-gotten gains. Unless you can forgive fate, you are going to destroy… all of us—”
“L.W.” Mharta leaned out of the door she’d opened. “What are you doing out here.”