Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“If I met another man?” I pressed, even though he was radiating deadly fury. Even though my wrist was beginning to protest with a pain I was becoming used to
Knox’s eyes darted up to me, the can clattering against the counter. He backed me against the fridge.
I gasped at the impact against my back as he caged me in. I was never complacent with him, my body never becoming accustomed to his nearness, his need. Every time was like the first time.
Knox hovered inches from me, hips pressing into mine with sublime pressure. “If you met another man, I’d imagine his death every moment of my life. But I wouldn’t kill him as long as he made you happy.” His eyes made a slow tour up and down my body. His gaze told me he was hungry, needful, but irate too. “Now are we done with this fucking insane conversation?”
I pursed my lips, nodding, knowing when to back down.
“Good.” He pushed off the fridge and resumed cooking as if the most intense conversation I’d ever had hadn’t even happened.
We’d eaten in complete silence, not speaking since the conversation about children. Knox was still stewing. I was a little angry at myself. I couldn’t help but push him, strain the limits of this dynamic between us, trying to find the edges.
There was no edge.
No end.
I was scared I had hurt him, ruined something sacred between us, until the second we finished the meal when h sent all the plates clattering from the dining room table then fucked me on it. The man had never-ending stamina, as did I, despite my injuries and the general trauma of the past week. If anything, it made me more desperate for the escape he offered. The safety of our coupling, drowning out everything that wasn’t connected to our bodies.
Still, we hadn’t spoken, not afterward, not as we cleaned up or as he carried me to the bedroom, tugging my naked body so I laid on his chest, arms locking around me just a little too tight. Just how I liked it.
“Will we survive this?” I asked in the darkness.
Gone was the quiet the woods offered. Sirens sounded in the distance, street noise filtered in, grating against my ears.
Knox’s arms might’ve tightened around me had they not already been as tight as humanly possible.
“The real world,” I continued. “Will we survive it?”
Some of the tension in my body slackened with relief of asking the question that I’d been torturing myself with.
“Yes.”
I waited for more of an explanation, even though I knew Knox well enough to know he wasn’t one to offer more when he didn’t feel the need to.
“Yes?” I echoed. “That’s it?”
Knox shifted me so I was straddling him, the movement sending a gasp from my mouth as my tender, aching body ground against him where he was rapidly hardening against me.
His hand curled around the back of my neck, then he yanked me down so our foreheads pressed together.
“Yes, Petal. That is it. We, us, will survive whatever comes because there is no other option.”
The way he said this was so concrete, so certain, it had the power to wipe all of my doubts away.
For a time, at least.
For once, Knox fell asleep before me. I heard it in the cadence of his breath, the very slight loosening of his grip. He still held me as if he were convinced I’d melt from his fingers.
Though I was exhausted in a way I’d never been in my life, I was unable to sleep. I wasn’t haunted by taking another life—a subject Knox hadn’t broached, interestingly. Sure, my actions rattled in my brain, promising to make a mark at some point, but as of yet, it failed to land.
Instead of lifeless eyes and spurting blood, I thought of Knox.
I thought about the choices I’d made that led me there.
In love. With a dangerous man. The one kind I’d sworn I’d stay away from ever since I was old enough to comprehend my father’s role in our destruction.
But if there was anything I’d learned from the past month, from what I’d observed with Lukyan and Elizabeth, it was that there were two kinds of dangerous men. There were the ones who ensured women didn’t walk home alone in the dark, who we were cautious with when rejecting them, who believed women were just objects to be owned. Then there were the dangerous men who considered us their treasure. Not theirs to own but theirs to protect. The dangerous men who would never hurt us but would protect us from a world designed to break us. The men who would commit the most heinous crimes, cover themselves with blood and gore, to keep us clean. And who would teach us to become weapons in our own right when we wanted to fight too. Men who weren’t afraid of strength in their women. Who fed it like kindling to flame.