Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
12
CHARLES
She knows the code. She could’ve left at any time. Here I was thinking I had her on lock-down and completely safe, but that’s not the case at all. If I can’t protect her, then what am I even doing? I don’t deserve her if I can’t keep her safe.
“Come on. You’re freezing already.” I take her back to my room and set her on the bed, then wrap my blanket tightly around her.
“What are you—” Her chin wobbles, and I realize there are tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” I kneel in front of her and look up. “What’s wrong, pretty eyes?”
“Why did you seem so…mad? Are you angry because I knew the code?”
“No.” I blink, surprised she thought I was mad.
“You just grabbed me and dragged me back in here like you were livid, so I—"
“No.” I press my palm to her cheek. “Mad at you? Not a chance.”
“Then what’s going on?”
I can’t bear for her to be upset like this, especially when I’m the reason. Goddammit, I’m screwing everything up right at the start. I take a deep breath to ground myself.
“I was just scared,” I admit.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You?”
“Yes.” I smile despite myself. “Is it so hard to believe?”
She nods slowly. “Absolutely.”
I scoot closer and pull her into my arms. “I admit fear has never meant much to me. But now that you’re here, everything’s different. I have this—” I don’t even know how to explain it without sounding like some sort of caveman. “Need to protect you. And maybe it’s over the top, but it scared me when I realized you could’ve opened the gate to anyone. Or even opened it to … leave.” God, it hurts to even think of her walking away from me.
“That’s why you were mad? You were scared I’d leave?” She sighs and runs her fingers through my hair. “I thought you, I don’t know, noticed how weird it is that I can remember the code after seeing it just once.”
I slide my hands beneath her and grip her ass through the blanket. “That is weird. But a good kind of weird. Photographic memory?”
“Yes. You’ve heard of it?” When she seems relieved, I can finally breathe again.
“Just in passing. Some of the guys in my line of work have the same talent, among others, and they use it to full advantage.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“Same way you did, pretty eyes. They get one look at a code or a secret message, and then they have it forever. It’s powerful.” I ease her back onto the bed and open my blanket like she’s a gift. Because she is.
“You ran out of here without telling me anything.” I lower my lips to her throat and nip her with my teeth. “Just left. Could’ve been running into a trap or an enemy of mine.” I grip her wrists and pin them to the bed. “Promise me you’ll never do that again.”
She moves her hips against me, her legs opening to welcome me closer. “Promise to never run from you?”
“You’re what I want. Nothing else. Just this.” I yank her shirt up and fasten my mouth around one of her nipples.
She moans and arches. “Charles,” she gasps. “I can’t … I can’t stay here … forever. Aurora has shows and—”
“I’ll go wherever you go. The two of us, always together. I’ll follow you into any pop culture pit you want, just so long as you’re by my side.” I can’t believe I’m offering this, but I can’t help myself. If her work is important to her, then it’s important to me, too.
She giggles and gasps again when I take her other hard nipple. “What about a Britney Spears show in Vegas?”
I groan but don’t stop sucking her perfect tits.
“Jonas Brothers?” she teases. “Bieber?”
I bite her a little harder and draw a moan from her. “Don’t push it.”
“What if I do, mountain man?” Her voice is a sexy purr that takes me apart at a cellular level. She’s not just under my skin; she owns my skin. I kiss up the valley of her breasts to her throat, and she rocks her hips, looking for that special kind of friction only I can give her.
“You need me, pretty eyes? You want me in that tight pussy? Tell me.”
“Yes,” she says huskily. “I want you. All of you.”
She doesn’t have to say more. I’ll never deny her a damn thing. Reaching between us, she scrabbles at my pants. I lift up and unfasten them, then yank them and my boxer briefs to my knees. I need to be inside her, to feel that connection, so I don’t bother shucking them all the way off.
I nestle between her thighs and run the head of my cock along her slick slit. And when I plunge inside, I groan as she digs her nails into my shoulders. “I’ll never give this up, pretty eyes. Never let you go.” I thrust hard, punishing her as she moans and spreads as wide as she can, taking every stroke I give her.