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)
Because he was here.
Whole and real.
Flesh and blood and spirit.
The one person I’d ever truly wanted.
The one I’d needed.
The air thickened, and I thought I could hear the hands of time slow as the connection that had forever bound us crackled in the room.
A foreign blaze ignited.
One that warmed my insides. One that was stoked with every rough caress of his eyes.
I hoped in it he could feel my appreciation for what he had done.
That he could feel that piece of me that had come alive.
The piece I wanted him to keep.
My lungs constricted as I stepped even closer so I could apply the bandages: one to a small cut above his eye and a butterfly stitch, which I used on a deeper gash on his cheek.
The entire time, Pax remained silent, though the thoughts that swirled in his mind were so thick and loud I was sure I could hear them.
Like whispers he uttered directly into my soul.
His need and his terror. His desire and his fear.
And I thought maybe . . . maybe he felt the same. Maybe he ached for me the way I ached for him.
The fluttery buzz that whipped through my belly and the tension that strained and pulled and possessed.
“Here,” I muttered, my fingers shaking as they went to the hem of his soiled shirt. I began to nudge it upward, and Pax emitted a low groan as I continued pushing it higher.
Inch by inch, it revealed the peaks and valleys of his muscled abdomen.
Slowly exposing the scars that had been carved into his flesh and the colors and shapes that had been woven over them.
The designs veils of our truth.
Reaching up, Pax tugged the fabric the rest of the way over his head, and he vibrated when I got brave enough to softly trace my fingertips over a scar on his side.
A live wire that had been possessed by the energy that howled.
A power that was ethereal.
Otherworldly.
I felt it battering the exterior walls of the cold, barren restroom when I touched him, felt it penetrate my soul as he stared down at me with a potency that stole through my insides.
“Aria,” he murmured.
I shook as I returned the whisper of his name. “Pax.”
He let the pad of his thumb trace the scar that ran along my right cheek.
I leaned in to his touch.
“You’re wrong, Aria. You are a princess. One I’d be a bastard to touch.”
We remained there for a long moment.
Held.
Bound.
A piece of us anchored while the rest was lost to treacherous, violent seas.
Pax suddenly cleared his throat, and he ducked away and turned his back to me.
He’d only moved a foot, but it felt like a cavern had split open between us.
He dug out a clean shirt from his duffel, pulled it over his head, then tossed everything back into the kit before he stuffed that into the duffel and zipped it.
“We need to keep moving.” A new hardness underscored the words, and he kept his gaze averted as he extended his hand for me to take.
He flinched when I did, the contact a searing burn that flamed, a burst of light flashing behind my eyes.
He led us back out, moving cautiously the way he always did, though now that he was cleaned up and had erased the evidence of the altercation, he didn’t pause to look around the corners. He just hurried us toward his car.
I still had the keys, so I clicked the lock, and he led me directly to the passenger side. He tossed our bags into the back. Once I was inside, he shut my door, then rushed to climb into the driver’s seat.
Headlights suddenly speared across the lot as a car approached.
He started the car and was getting ready to back out, only he had to wait when the car slowly continued behind us and pulled into a parking spot three down from my side.
Pax quickly pulled out just as the driver’s door opened, illuminating the interior of the small SUV. But it wasn’t so fast that I didn’t catch sight of a little girl who had her face pressed to the back driver’s-side window.
An unfamiliar face.
One I’d never seen before.
Still, my heart stalled out.
Because pale, pale gray eyes were staring back at me.
Pax shifted into gear and gunned it back onto the freeway while I tried to breathe around the clatter in my chest.
“Did you see her?” I finally managed to wheeze.
Pax hesitated for a prolonged beat before he reluctantly answered, “Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Pax
I drove southwest today. No real destination other than away. As far away as we could get. Like we could actually outrun any of this bullshit when it would only be waiting for us up ahead.
Every direction was fraught with peril.
Every road leading to our downfall.
I glanced to where she was curled up in the passenger seat.