Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
The one who’d touched me just hours ago and had ensured that I would never be the same.
Because for the first time in my life—I believed.
I believed I could grow beyond the traumas I’d suffered. Believed I could find the strength within myself to seek my desires and wants and needs. Believed I could finally spread these wings and soar.
Believed that even though the fear might always remain, I could face it.
I just wondered if he would be brave enough to face them with me.
Wistfulness pulled through his harsh features, this gentleness that he’d always encompassed for me seeping out. “I’m going to be just fine, Raven. I promise you.”
A wave of intensity rushed.
Tension binding the tiny room in bows of greed.
Shockwaves of energy banged against the walls and slammed into me on all sides.
His thumb traced the little freckle on the side of my lip, and those bottomless eyes dipped to the spot where he was touching me before they flicked back to meet my stare.
My heart jackhammered.
Kiss me.
Kiss me.
I wanted to beg it, but the words were lost somewhere in the landslide of rocks that rolled around in my throat. Were locked in the maze of obstacles that would always stand between us.
I could smell him. That patchouli and apple mixed with nothing but man. Dirt and the faintest vestiges of my arousal.
A shiver raced, and that anticipation sent butterflies scattering through my body.
But I guessed Otto must have run straight into one of those obstacles because he suddenly cleared his throat. “Gonna give everyone the word and get them over here.”
A blunder of disappointment and confusion left me on a breath, and I forced myself to nod, to stand, to go back to the sink and rinse out the cloth like this man wasn’t destroying me.
I stared at the blood-tinged water that circled the drain before it disappeared, and a stupid freaking tear got loose from my eye.
God, he was going to think I was needy and pathetic.
View me the same way as he always had.
A little girl he needed to protect.
He’d believe I couldn’t handle what’d happened between us. That I couldn’t move on from it like an adult.
But how was I supposed to actually do that?
Move on from it?
I didn’t look up when Otto slowly stood, and I remained hunched over the counter as he edged up behind me.
A giant in the tiny room.
His presence overwhelmed.
A shudder ripped down my spine when he leaned in and murmured against the sensitive flesh at the nape of my neck. “Fuck, Raven. I wish you understood. Wish you understood I would give anything to be right for you.”
THIRTY-THREE
OTTO
“That should do it.” Dr. Reynolds finished taping a bandage over the wound on my thigh, the elderly man’s grin both knowing and worried, though he kept his voice light since I was definitely not the first of us to call him in the middle of the night needing his services.
Thank fuck he made house calls.
But he was paid pretty well to do the things we needed him to do and to do them in confidence.
Trusted the man, one hundred percent.
“He’s in the clear?” River asked for what had to have been the tenth time since he’d come blazin’ in ten minutes ago.
Rest of the crew had trickled in after that.
Each vibrating aggression where they gathered in some kind of semi-circle around the chair where I sat near the dining room table since the light was best there.
The sun was just breaking the horizon, the massive windows behind us striking with a gray glow and making them all appear like shadowy beasts. Beasts doing their best not to work themselves into a rage but pretty much failing.
I’d at least taken off my boots and pulled on shorts and a tee before anyone had gotten here, so maybe the madman look had ebbed a fraction, but there was no question every single one of us looked a bit psychotic.
“He should be completely fine. Bullet hit the side of his thigh and didn’t lodge, though it took a nice chunk of skin with it. Seven stitches should do it. He might be sore for a couple of days, but other than that, he’s good as new.”
“See, what did I tell you? You can’t keep a good man down, and this one is the best.” I issued it with all the exaggeration I could enlist, hoping it belied the wrath that burned inside me.
My attention moved to Raven who stood on the other side of River. Distress radiated from her every pore.
I itched, wondering if her brother could look at her and see that something had shifted. That a change had been made. If he could see my filthy hands written all over her.
Really fucked-up thing was there was a part of me that thought I hadn’t touched her nearly enough. Part of me that thought there was so much more to explore and discover.