Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
I somehow managed to do it while in the driver’s seat, and he shoved his feet into his boots without lacing them.
He again glanced around the area before he slowly unlocked the door and climbed out, then reached behind his seat to pull out our bags.
I hurried to get out, trying to ignore the frozen wind that howled through the soaring pines that towered over the area, my thin pajamas no match for the chill.
Pax had already rounded the front of the car by the time I’d stood, and he took my hand. A rash of shivers streaked through my body. A clash of cold and overpowering heat.
His jaw clenched, and he forced out, “Let’s go.”
We rushed toward the buildings that housed the restrooms, keeping low and vigilant. He pressed us up to the exterior wall, and he peered around the corner before he gave my hand a tug when he found the other side empty, making sure that no one saw him in this state, not when we’d left a man dead a hundred miles behind us.
We slunk across the small courtyard toward the restroom. Pax again pressed us to the wall, peering around the corner and through the gaping door before he eased us inside.
It was only a fraction warmer within the white block walls, the only relief the protection from the wind. Two bright lights shone overhead, one over the two stalls and another over the sinks.
There were no mirrors or windows, and I gagged a little at the putrid stench as I tiptoed over the grungy brown tiles.
Pax grunted. “Not exactly the lap of luxury.”
“I think this is an opportune time to remember I’m not the princess you were hoping I was going to be,” I attempted to joke. To add some lightness to a disaster that weighed so heavy I thought I might suffocate beneath it.
Only a small cry got free when Pax finally turned around and faced me.
In the glaring light, his injuries were more distinct.
The cuts were deep, and bruises were starting to show where his skin had begun to swell.
“I’m so sorry,” I wheezed.
“You and I have both been through far worse, Aria.”
My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip as he brought voice to the pain we endured in Faydor.
“I still hate that it happened,” I murmured, edging closer while he propped our bags on a sink to keep them off the floor. He dug into his duffel, pulled out a large first aid kit, and balanced it on top; then he rummaged around inside it, eventually producing a bottle of peroxide, bandages, and clean cloths.
He turned on the faucet and leaned over the sink. Over and over, he splashed cold water onto his face to wash away the blood, which had begun to dry and cake, before he doused a cloth in peroxide.
He hissed as he began to scrub it over his wounds.
“Let me.” It was issued like a plea to his back. Wanting to do something. To change it. To somehow make it better.
“You don’t have to take care of me.” With the way he grated it toward the brick wall, I wondered if anyone ever had.
“No, I don’t, Pax—just like you didn’t have to come for me, but you did it anyway.”
Air heaved from his nose, and he planted his hands on the sides of the sink and dropped his head between his shoulders. “I’m not sure that’s true. I don’t think I could have ignored your call. Don’t think I could have ignored the lure of you.”
Trembles raced through me, and I doubted it had a thing to do with the cold. Because I felt hot. Itchy with the need to act. With the need to touch. It was close to consuming when he finally turned to face me.
Everything about him was overwhelming.
Potent and extreme.
The sharply hewn edge of his cheeks and the inflexibility of his stony jaw.
The slash of his powerful brows and the plush of his lips.
But it was the icy flames of his eyes that were completely captivating. That would swallow me down and take me under. The promise that haunted me in my dreams.
I took a step forward.
Energy thrashed.
His breaths turned hard and shallow, panted in the bare space that separated us. He watched me as if I might not be real, either. Like he was terrified I might disappear. Like he wanted to hang on but had already made an oath to himself that he had to let me go.
Unable to look away from his face, I took the cloth from his hand, and I began to gently dab it on his wounds.
Carefully.
Tenderly.
Needing him to understand through my touch what he meant to me. What he always had. Only that feeling had changed and shifted and taken new shape once he’d come to me in the flesh.