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)
I flinch at his taunt.
It’s not the first of its kind I’ve gotten.
But it still stings, and fisting my fingers, I lean back. “Look, I was just leaving, okay? Can I just have my arm back so I can do that?”
He chuckles, his eyes amused but the bad kind, the mean kind. “But you just got here.”
“I’m —”
Cocking his head to the side, he cuts me off. “You’re a little butt-hurt. I understand that. I saw what happened. How your boy left you high and dry just now. But listen,” he twists my arm slightly, asserting his dominance as he leans in even more, “it doesn’t have to be this way. How about I make you feel better, huh? You and me.”
“I don’t want to feel better. All I want is for you to let me go.”
“Come on,” he cajoles. “You know I’ve always liked you. I bared my heart to you back then but you shot me down. I can overlook that though. Maybe you were still heartbroken about the whole thing. But it’s been two years now. This could be our chance. This could be —”
“No,” I say, glaring at him. “We will never have a chance. I don’t want a chance with you, with someone who has propositioned me. So I want you to —”
Let me go.
That’s what I was going to say and maybe push him away too, if that time he hadn’t listened to me.
As it is, I don’t think I need to.
Because Brad has already let me go, before I could even finish my sentence, and is now in the process of being pushed back. Or rather pulled back by the neck of his t-shirt, his eyes wide and shocked.
As much as mine.
And it doesn’t stop, this pulling.
Until Brad is well and truly away from me, and shoved back into a tree off to the side.
Really hard.
It’s all accomplished within a few seconds: Brad letting me go and being shoved and restrained to an almost secluded corner.
And it’s all accomplished by him.
This time, I’m sure it’s him.
I can see the wide expanse of his back, his muscles all standing taut and twitching under his t-shirt. I can even see the elbow of his lifted arm with which he’s pinning Brad to the tree.
And choking him.
My ex-boyfriend’s ex-best friend.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Brad is going to die.
He’s so totally going to die because Reign is killing him.
Reign is fucking killing him.
Holy shit.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing?” he growls in Brad’s face. “Why the fuck were your hands on her?
“Reign!” I cry out, breaking into motion and running toward them. “Let him go.”
It only makes him tighten his hold on Brad, who’s flailing. “You know you’re gonna die now, don’t you? You know I’m gonna kill you. For touching her. For fucking touching what’s mi —”
“Reign, no.” I grab his t-shirt, trying to pull him away. “Let him go.”
He thumps Brad’s head on the tree, making him whimper and moan. “You got any last words, motherfucker? Something to say before I make you choke on your own fucking tongue.”
Brad struggles harder at this, his eyes bugging out of his skull, his mouth making choking noises.
So I increase my efforts.
I pull and tug on Reign’s t-shirt, his arm, as I plead, “Please, Reign. Let him go. You’re killing him.”
Not the right thing to say because that only amps up Reign’s strength and he growls in Brad’s face, baring his teeth, as if asserting his own dominance over Brad.
“Reign, just take me home, okay?” I try, still trying to snap him out of this rage. “Just please take me home. I don’t like this. I don’t want to be here. Please.”
And finally, this works.
He loosens his hold on Brad and turns to look at me.
And I notice that his eyes are bloodshot.
His eyes are violent and stormy.
I have a feeling this is what a predator looks like, a lion or a wolf, a panther, before it rips apart its prey. But instead of moving away from him and his dangerous aura, I inch closer. I lick my dried-out lips and whisper, “Just let him go.”
Those bloody eyes of his dip to my mouth for a second.
Before he clenches his bruised jaw and lets Brad go.
While Brad is coughing and wheezing, Reign still stares at me and I stare back.
At the taut lines of his face. Those pulsating, almost glowing bruises.
At his shuddering, wildly breathing big body.
The Bandit.
The predator who so blatantly attacked someone.
For me.
To protect me.
“I…”
I don’t know what I was going to say and it doesn’t even matter now. Because Reign turns back to Brad, who’s still trying to catch his breath, slumped and heaving, and grabs the neck of his t-shirt. He shoves Brad back into the trunk, making my heart jump into my throat again, and rasps, “If you ever, ever, put your filthy fucking hands on her, I’ll fucking kill you, you understand?”