Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Just in time for another atomic flash to melt my eyes.
Pain uppercuts me like it never left, driving an iron spike between my eyes.
Whimpering, I tilt forward.
August catches me with a snarl boiling up his throat.
I barely catch a glimpse of someone smirking, then disappearing into the trees along the sidewalk with a camera clutched in his hand, before my vision goes dark and murky.
From the vibrating tension in August’s touch, he’s about to charge after my camera ninja like a marine drill sergeant who’s just caught some dumb boy climbing in through his daughter’s window.
Only, he doesn’t.
He stays, holding me tighter than ever, while I hear the car door open and a third set of footsteps, then another car door opening.
“This way, Mr. Marshall!” Rick urges softly.
“Thank you, Merrick,” August answers. His hands guide me forward. “Just a few more steps, Elle. Fuck, I’m sorry. Old paparazzi trick to get you to turn for a good shot. I should’ve briefed you on their games.”
“I-it’s okay,” I stammer.
But it’s not okay.
It’s worse being bitch-slapped from that wonderful kiss and back into this awful feeling than it was with the swelling migraine alone.
August ushers me into the car so carefully.
I still can’t see beyond vague hints of things around the black-and-white flashers clouding my vision, but he coaxes me to sit, to draw my feet in, before Rick closes the door behind me and reclaims the driver’s seat.
“Stay,” August orders Rick. “Elle isn’t well, and the motion could make it worse. Give her time.” To me, he whispers, “Lie down. Just like before. We’ll wait as long as it takes.”
I let him guide me, stretching out gratefully across the plush back seat.
What I’m not expecting is that when he says just like before, he means—
Resting my head in his lap, apparently, instead of scrunching up to fit my head against the seat at his side.
I’m too tired to question it.
And I don’t really want to when it’s comforting and close, and that’s exactly what I need right now without thinking too hard about it. So I settle with my head in his lap and close my eyes.
I don’t mean to fall asleep.
I want to stay awake.
I want to talk to him.
I desperately want to wonder what that look was for after he kissed me, almost like he was angry at me, and not the photographer.
I want to hold on to the warmth still throbbing in my lips.
So many wants, but I can’t.
My body takes over and drags me down a bottomless abyss.
Before I can think about what I want next, I’m gone.
VIII
SUNSHINE MADE FLESH
(AUGUST)
Strange how fast things have come full circle, landing me right back where I started.
Specifically in the back of my car, with Rick in the driver’s seat and Elle sprawled across me, her head in my lap. She’s so weak after her hellish migraine left her unable to stand.
She sleeps so quietly, so trustingly, her lips parted and her face at rest, not drawn into the lines of pain that shaped it so deeply before. When she’s serene, she looks gracefully older.
There’s a pensiveness haunting her that gives her this melancholy beauty, always longing and reaching for something just out of her grasp.
I wonder what she longs for so intently.
So deeply I can almost taste it on her lips.
That’s the difference between the day I met her and now.
On the day after she collapsed at SeaTac, I didn’t know how goddamned divine her lips would taste on mine.
Didn’t know how easy it would be to devour her, to almost give in to the urge to explore, even if it would have made the front page of every rancid gossip blog tomorrow. I can imagine the headlines, journalist clowns shouting that the Black Widow Billionaire had just assaulted his future bride when she was in distress, unable to care for her pain when all that mattered was his lust.
A dark smile twists my lips as I glance out the window, watching cars ease past our parked G80. Many of them hold the reporters I rudely dismissed.
If only I were such a thoughtless fuck.
My life would be easier if I gave in to every whim, every impulse I have without a single thought for how it would affect others.
How does she do it?
Living so spontaneously and still being so kind.
I can’t imagine being so hedonistic without being selfish too.
Yet Elle seems entirely selfless.
Especially the way she pushed herself today, knowing the cameras would set off her migraines if the reporters didn’t honor the conditions of my agreement.
I’m a rumbling volcano of a man.
Furious at their disrespect and the way they hurt her. I’m tempted to make some calls that will sever heads, but I hold back for her sake only.
If I pull strings to make sure a dozen assholes wind up terminated and destitute, Elle might be disappointed.