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)
“Will you lie with me?” I whispered into the tension that strained between us.
“Aria . . .”
It was a warning.
Pain.
Need.
This confusion of who we were meant to be.
“Please.”
Reluctance radiated from him before he blew out a sigh of submission. My stare was locked on him as he slowly edged around the opposite side of the bed. He was still in his jeans, though his feet were bare when he climbed onto the mattress.
It dipped beneath his weight, and his spirit thrashed in the night.
I could feel it—like it was mine.
Flailing.
Pleading.
Desperate.
And I wondered if perhaps we shared a piece of each other the way that mother and son had earlier today. Their spirits bonded for eternity.
Or maybe what Pax and I shared was entirely different.
Because my stomach tightened in an anticipation I’d never felt.
Chills skated across my skin as he carefully scooted closer. It felt as if there wasn’t enough oxygen yet I could finally breathe.
I shifted on my pillow so that I was lying on my side, and those eyes were on me as he rolled to his, too. Facing me, he wound his arms around my waist and pulled me against him.
A wave of energy slammed into us.
A riptide that kicked our feet out from under us.
No foundation but for the one we found in the other.
Shakily, I exhaled, and Pax pulled me even closer.
Close enough that my head rested on his biceps, and I could hear the thunderous pounding of his heart even though there were still at least six inches of space separating us. His breaths were shallow, as if he were terrified of inhaling too deeply, though it was my name on his lips when he whispered, “Aria.”
A muted glow from the bathroom filtered into the room and played like temptation over his face.
The man was half-shadow.
Half-light.
A darkness existed in him, so much deeper than I’d expected when I’d imagined him for all those years, but somehow, it still felt expected.
As if I’d known this piece of him all along.
With trembling fingers, I reached out and ran them along a scar hidden beneath a serpent on the left side of his neck. “Tell me about your family. I want to know you.”
Pax flinched. “I don’t think I need to bore you with those details, Aria.”
No question, boring me wasn’t his concern.
I saw the demons lap in his eyes, the icy gray swirling with hurt and hate.
“If you knew the amount of time I spent wondering what you were doing in the day, Pax, where you were, who you were with, if you were happy—then you’d know there is zero chance of me getting bored.”
The pad of his thumb ran the length of my jaw.
Tentatively.
Tenderly.
Affection softened his gaze. “I spent every second thinking of you, too. Worried about you. Wondering if your family took care of you. If they loved you. If you were safe.”
“Were you?” I hedged it on a whisper. “Were you safe and loved?”
With the few things he’d admitted, I knew well enough that he was not. Never before had I wanted to be the one who was there to provide everything he’d lacked more than right then.
His laugh was hollow. “No, Aria, I wasn’t safe and loved.”
Sorrow billowed. His and mine.
He wavered for a moment before his tongue stroked out to wet his dried lips. “From the beginning, my father thought I was a freak. Of course, I can’t remember, when I was really young, what he might have thought the first time he looked at me, but I can only imagine it was disgust.”
Grief fisted my heart, and I set my hand on his cheek. My thumb brushed along the defined angle as I stared at him, waiting for him to continue.
His voice hitched in pain. “I had four brothers, two older and two younger, and my father never let me forget that I was different from them. He did his best to beat it out of me, to whip his freak son into shape. My mother was too busy with the others to give a shit.”
Horror lanced through my being, and tears stung my eyes. “That breaks my heart.”
His shoulder shrugged beneath my cheek, like it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t make me sick. Like the same protectiveness Pax watched me with didn’t well inside me for him. “For a lot of years, the blows were enough to make me think there was something wrong with me. The older I grew, the more I thought I had to be fucking deranged. Crazy. Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt the same disgust my father felt when he looked at me.”
His voice lowered to a wisp. “But in the end, even if I was crazy? Insane? None of that mattered if it meant I got to see you night after night.”