Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
My eyes tear up at his grip. “No, Lucas. We can’t be. We never should’ve been.”
Which tightens yet again, to the point of real pain now. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Any idea how this will affect me?”
I twist in his grasp. “Lucas, please. Let me go.”
He leans closer, digging his large, strong fingers in my arm. “I just lost my father, Echo, and you didn’t even have the decency to wait. You didn’t even have the decency to pretend.”
“Lucas, please,” I implore, struggling. “You’re hurting me. You —”
“Yeah, what the fuck about my hurt? What the fuck,” he shakes me, his eyes manic now, “about what you put me through?”
“And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that I —”
“Sorry doesn’t make up for it, does it?” he snaps, biting out, coming so close to me that I’m afraid now.
I’m afraid that he might do something.
Something drastic.
“Lucas, please, I —”
And just like that, he leaves me and steps back.
And gosh, I can breathe again.
I take big gulps of air, my arm smarting with pain, my eyes stinging with tears.
Lucas looks at me for a second or two, still angry. But at least that manic look is gone from his eyes.
Then, “Well, fuck you, Echo. For wasting my time. For stringing me along and then dumping me. Without actually giving me the goods that I’d been working for.”
My heart twists. “Lucas —”
“And fuck you for picking him. It’s always him, isn’t it? He has to be the fucking center of attention.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not about him.”
He narrows his eyes. “It is though, isn’t it? Somehow it’s always about him.”
“It’s —”
He sighs then. “Well, tell him that I’m coming for him. Tell him to watch his back.”
My heart jumps in fear again but before I can ask him what he means by that, he turns around and strides out of the room.
And I stand there, panting and sore in the arm.
But only for a few seconds.
After that I’m running out of there.
I have to get out of here, go find him.
Make sure that he’s okay.
I have no idea what Lucas meant by his threat but I have to make sure that he’s safe.
Not to mention, I have to make sure that he hasn’t completely lost his mind. I don’t know how much time has passed since Lucas took me to this study but Reign must be freaking out.
And so I have to put him at ease. Reassure him that I’m still his.
Halfway down the hallway though, I come to a jarring halt.
When I see him standing before me.
Only a few feet away.
His eyes are fierce and his chest is rising and falling like there’s a storm inside of him.
A violent, electric storm.
A storm that I knew must be brewing.
It needs me. He needs me.
And from this intense connection between us, from this strange and wonderful telepathy, he knows that I will give it to him. Whatever he needs to calm himself down.
So he opens a door right by his side.
I’ve been in Lucas’s house enough times to know that it’s a door that leads to a bathroom and when he disappears inside, I follow him. I enter the dark space and he shuts the door behind me.
He crowds me against the wood, his body, all hard and straining, trapping me, pinning me in place.
Only then, when he has me in his grips, does he hit the switch and flood the space with bright lights.
My eyes lock with his.
The eyes that I’ve seen in my dreams ever since I was twelve.
“Reign,” I whisper, gripping his suit jacket, breathing hard against him.
In response, he growls, deep and low in his chest, that echoes in mine.
And comes for my mouth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
He comes for my breath.
For my heart that’s beating in the back of my throat, on the tip of my tongue that he’s sucking on. That he’s kissing on.
He’s trying to drink me. Swallow me down his throat. Tear me into sweet little pieces and eat me.
I want to tell him to slow down.
To not eat me too much, too fast or he’s going to get even sicker.
But who am I kidding?
I’m doing the same thing.
I’m eating him up too much and too fast. Drinking from his lips, soaking him up on my tongue.
Because he’s not the only one who’s sick here, is he?
“He took you,” he rasps, his one hand in my hair messing up my braid, and the other on my waist, pulling at my dress.
I grip his hair too, pull on his suit jacket. “No, he didn’t. He just —”
He kisses me then, stealing my words. “He took you in a room.”
“J-just to talk.”
“He locked the fucking door.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. Fucking asshole,” he growls, his fingers pinching and tugging.
“H-how do you know?”
“I checked.”
“Reign!” I say, exasperatedly.
“What, you didn’t think I’d leave you alone with him, did you? He made you cry the last time you were alone with him.”