Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 139803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 699(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 699(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Not mine. Mine got ruined. I was still in the hospital when the dance off happened the next weekend. The dance recruiters hadn’t cared about my ‘accident’.
That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I didn’t get to take.
“You need to talk to him, Meg,” Vince said as he stood up.
“Did you plan this?” I angrily demanded as I glared at Vincent.
He shrugged but nodded. “You shouldn’t get to decide what he wants,” Vincent said. “You didn’t see how he reacted when he saw you lying on that floor.” I flinched, casting my eyes away from him. I saw him cast me a sad smile through the mirrors. “Stop pushing away the people that just want to take care of you, Meg.”
With that, he strode from the room, but not before he slapped Julian on the back. Vincent closed the door behind him, closing me and Julian in the room together.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I snapped as I moved over to my phone to turn my music off completely.
“Too fucking bad.” Julian retorted. “We’re talking. I’m not fucking letting you push me away.”
I turned to glare at him, forgetting about my phone. “I can do whatever I damn well please,” I snarled at him.
“Not when it fucking concerns me,” he bit back in the same tone I had used. He stepped further into the room, his muscular, tattooed form reflecting in all of the mirrors—surrounding me with his presence. “You and I—we’re different, baby girl. We’ve got too much shit between us to ever just walk away from this,” he said, waving his hand between the space that still separated us.
“He ruined me, Julian,” I told him bitterly, my chest momentarily feeling like it was collapsing on itself. Julian’s blue eyes flashed with rage. “My fucking career is over. You and I—we’ll never really work, Julian.”
And that hurt a lot fucking more than I ever wanted to admit.
“I call bullshit,” he snarled at me. “One, there are plenty of other ways to still dance for the rest of your life. You can teach, give others the outlet you’ve found in dancing. There’s dance therapy. There’s so fucking much you can do besides be a professional, celebrity dancer.” My heart squeezed at his words. Not many people knew what else you could do with dancing. Most people thought dancing for a career was a dead-end kind of thing.
He had done his homework on my career path.
“And he did not fucking ruin you, Meghan,” Julian said as he moved closer to me. “He may have hurt you, baby girl, but he did not ruin you. He made you stronger, fiercer. I don’t know anyone who can still get the fuck up and face their demons every damn day like you do.” My eyes welled up with tears. He reached up and tenderly cupped my face in his hands. “He did not ruin you, baby.” His eyes flashed dangerously. “But I fucking ruined him for daring to touch you again,” he said quietly, his voice so quiet that I barely heard him even though he was standing right in front of me.
My eyes widened as I stared at Julian in horror. “Julian, what did you do?” I whispered.
My rapist had never been found—not yet. It was why Vincent, Axel, and Desiree were so hell-bent on staying so close to me at all times.
But Julian obviously knew something none of us did.
“He’ll never fucking touch you again, Meghan,” Julian said, his voice still extremely low. “I fucking made sure of it. The police will never find him because there’s nothing left of him to find.”
My bottom lip trembled as I stared at him, tears spilling down my cheeks. “You—you—" Fuck, I couldn’t even get the words out.
Julian killed him.
“I may not have protected you, baby girl, but I made sure that I would never make the same fucking mistake twice,” he said softly.
I wrapped my arms around his back and pressed myself close to him, leaning up on my tiptoes to press my lips to his. He groaned as he gripped my ass in his hands and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and grinded on him, desperate for him to relieve that burning ache inside of me that instantly lit whenever Julian was around me, whenever he touched me.
“The door,” I gasped out, not giving a fuck that we were definitely about to have sex in the dance studio. I was just worried someone would walk in on us.
“Locked,” Julian groaned. “You can thank Vince later.”
I moaned as he pushed my back against the mirror and thrust his hips against my throbbing core. “I’m about to make sure you forget that he ever fucking touched you,” Julian promised as he trailed his lips over my jaw and down my neck.