Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
I’ve slept for hours, but it feels like minutes.
Drawing in a deep breath, I part my lips to scream—as if anyone in this house would save me—but the sound doesn’t make it past my throat. He covers my mouth with his hand, but it’s the cold blue eyes of the rejected man staring back at me that terrify me.
“Am I going to have to hold you down?”
I whimper, but Thorin doesn’t care if I’m scared.
“Am I going to have to get rough with you, Aurelia?”
I swallow down the need to ask him the same and shake my head.
He’s not like the other two.
Thorin rarely finds me amusing or cute or any of the condescending things that makes men believe women can’t be dangerous. In a weird twist of irony, I guess one could say Thorin respects me more than the others. He sees me for the threat that I am and keeps me at an arm’s distance.
When he uses his free hand to reach between us and pull on the worn sash of Khalil’s robe—Khalil, whose cum is still dried on my thighs—I keep my promise and don’t fight him.
The moment the robe is loose and the panels part, Thorin lowers his head, and his breath skates over the soft curve of my belly.
“What’s it going to take to convince you that you belong here, wolf? I can take you apart one limb at a time and keep only the parts we need. But that can get messy and won’t be nearly as much fun as option B.”
I gulp and just barely keep the tremble out of my voice when I ask, “Option B?”
Thorin nods but doesn’t elaborate as he kisses my stomach. His attention on this particular part of my body needles at my self-consciousness. It’s all I can do not to snap my robe closed and hide my body from his leering. All he says is, “I like this look on you.”
“What look?”
“Your belly swollen.”
My gaze narrows, forgetting all about the fact that he just threatened to dismember me if I tried to run again. “Are you calling me fat?”
Thorin’s gaze flicks upward, and he gives me a look full of impatience. “Out of all the things you should have taken from what I said, how is that what you heard, Aurelia?”
I shrug and look away.
It doesn’t matter anyway. The issue isn’t whether he appreciates my body. I don’t care. I love the way I look. It’s the fact that he’ll do whatever he wants to it, regardless of how I feel.
Thorin, as if to prove a point, removes Khalil’s robe and then stares at my body like it’s on the dinner menu, and he doesn’t know where to start—the appetizer, entrée, or straight to dessert.
“You didn’t strike me as the type to be insecure,” he remarks absently.
“I’m not insecure. I’m human,” I say as I stare at the vaulted ceiling, waiting for him to fuck me already so he can leave me alone. “There’s not a person alive who doesn’t feel it sometimes. There are only those who are honest about it and those who bullshit about it.”
Thorin grunts but doesn’t deny it.
Looking at him, I wonder if I’m wrong.
Thorin clearly has nothing to be insecure about. He checks every box except kindness and chivalry.
As if he can tell where my mind wanders, Thorin sits up until he’s kneeling over me. My gaze is unwillingly drawn back to him when he grips the bottom of his shirt. It’s not until the hem shows the first strip of skin that I realize I’ve never seen Thorin shirtless. Seth and Khalil, yes, but not Thorin.
I realize why when the shirt clears his belly button, and I see it.
Four deep, diagonal slashes.
It keeps going, extending from the right side of his waist across his abs and stopping above the nipple on his left pec. The scar tissue is pink, slightly raised, and fully healed, but no less horrifying to see—not because of the appearance but because of what he must have survived.
Is this what I’ll look like once I’m finally safe from them? Healed and alive but forever scarred?
“What happened?” I ask to keep from reaching out and touching Thorin’s old wounds. And, okay, I’m also curious if his abs are really as hard as they look. Paradoxically, the scars only make him seem more invincible, and I start to waver because if whatever did that couldn’t kill him, what chance did I have?
“Grizzly.” Thorin’s tone implies it happens every day. I don’t know. Does it? I sure the fuck hope not.
“You fought a grizzly bear?” I echo skeptically. I give into the impulse this time and run my fingers over his scars and through the thin scattering of hair on his lower stomach. “And you won.” He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t, but it still sounds unbelievable.