Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
I need to think, sure.
I also need to meet Micah tomorrow night.
Because if he really has something compelling up his sleeve, then he deserves a chance for me to hear him out.
And I deserve a chance to find out how brave I can be.
6
DARK DREAMS (MICAH)
She came.
I won’t lie, I didn’t expect her to.
Last night, she looked at me like I was the danger.
The one she should be afraid of.
Can she see right through me so easily? I wonder.
Does she know that underneath the calm façade, under the mantra to serve and protect, I’m not a good man?
I tried to be once.
I tried to be better than my father, but since the day Jet died, there’s just this slow, deep-rooted poison swirling with black thoughts.
Horrors I’d like to do to Xavier Arrendell.
To Ephraim Jacobin and his rotten fucking clan.
Also, what I think about doing to Talia Grey—very different, very devastating things—as I watch her now.
She’s standing on my doorstep under the bright morning sun.
There’s a bulging rucksack piled against her back. Her slender shoulders strain, making her chest thrust forward in curving mounds that threaten to burst through her pink plaid flannel.
Danger tits. She just invented them.
And pink again.
Damn if I don’t smile.
The shirt looks brand new, still a little stiff despite the way the fabric clings to her—and there’s not a single scuff on the dark-brown leather hiking boots she’s wearing, laced up tight over the cuffs of dark jeans molded to her shapely legs and vanishing into her scrunched pink and black argyle socks.
Is she already flushed?
A little breathless, perhaps, her coppery-red hair pulled up in a ponytail, minus a few wild strands that billow against her cheeks.
Her eyes are so bright.
So eager.
Even if I never lay a hand on her, fuck, I’m going to defile this young woman’s innocence no matter what I do.
One more reason why I’m a terrible person.
The more I think about how wrong it would be, the more I want it.
I screw my mind back in place, though, giving her another once-over.
“Did you buy out the entire sporting goods store?” I ask dryly, and her flush deepens. I can’t help wondering if she blushes so easily all the time, or if it’s something unique about me—the way I clearly twist her up.
Yeah.
Bad fucking man.
Because that just makes me want to pin her up against a wall and find out how red I can make her, how I can make her tremble, and if that flustered look could ever be something else.
I don’t know why vulnerability turns my crank.
Maybe because I was made to feel helpless my entire young life, and now there’s something darkly satisfying about turning it back on someone else.
About being the one in charge.
About holding her pleasure and her fate together in the same iron fist.
Fuck, I definitely need to get this over with and forget all about wondering if Talia Grey’s thighs quiver the same way her lips do.
Those lips move now, reminding me I need to process normal words instead of my own deviant thoughts. Especially with the way she’s scuffing her feet and toying with the adjustable sections of her backpack straps, twining the black nylon around her fingers, blissfully unaware of my filthy thoughts.
“Fair warning, I’ve never been camping,” she starts sheepishly. “I thought it’d be better to overpack a bit.”
“Never?”
Talia averts her eyes.
“…I know. It’s weird, living here and never doing it when it’s like the only thing to do for fun. But yeah.”
There’s an awkward silence.
I think I get what she means, but I won’t embarrass her more by pushing about it.
“Give me a minute,” I say. “Let me grab my gear and put Rolf in his harness, and then we can sort your bag and head out.”
“What do we need to sort?”
“Emptying it out, first,” I answer. “Even I wouldn’t want to haul that around in the hills for hours, and we’re going to be climbing for a while. It’s just one night, Miss Grey. Considering the weather, we’d be fine with a couple canteens, a sleeping bag, and a fire.”
“…oh. Okay. I feel dumb now.”
“Don’t,” I throw back. “Your head was in the right place. Be right back.”
I step back and push the door back, leaving it open just enough to not seem rude, but still not inviting entry.
I’m territorial about my space, though it’s not just that.
Having a woman here feels too intimate.
Like this is more than me dragging her into my business, if I let her get familiar with my home.
I can’t afford that.
Not when I can never predict what might blow my cover and tear the identity of Officer Micah Ainsley into shreds, revealing the truth.
So I leave her standing outside while I snag the smaller backpack I prepped yesterday and sling it over one shoulder, then coax Rolf into his harness. It’s designed to make it easier to manage him on steep inclines and help him if he takes a fall.