Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
He pumped his seed inside me with his final thrusts, his hand digging into my hair next because his previous grip hadn’t been enough. Instead of his dick softening to half-mast, it remained rock-hard inside me like he’d never fired the load in the barrel. “Can you take another?” He was already rocking gently, giving me a sample of his size after pounding the entire thing.
I would never say no to this man, not when a million women would happily take my place and cry tears of pain and joy all night long. “Yes.”
I jerked up from the bed, my eyes snapping wide open and seeing the darkness in front of me. I gasped for air like I’d been held underwater for five minutes and my lungs were about to burst. Sweat coated my forehead and the small of my back.
“Sweetheart.” He sat up behind me and placed his hand on my arm. “Just a bad dream…” He sounded wide awake, like he hadn’t slept at all. His arm circled my stomach, and he started to pull me to him.
My back hit his chest, but I continued to breathe like the danger hadn’t passed. I was stuck in the house that used to be a home, Bolton sitting in the armchair and looking at me with his threatening gaze. When I looked in the mirror, my face was gone…because he ripped it off. It was just blood and open pockets of flesh. I couldn’t shake the image from my mind, whether I opened my eyes or clenched them shut.
Theo pressed a kiss to my shoulder and neck when I didn’t calm down. “It’s not real.” He kissed me again. “This is real.”
I threw off the blankets because I was soaked in sweat. I couldn’t get enough air, even though the cool air came through the vents. My fingers went to my face and felt my soft cheeks, feeling them intact. My eyes were still there, my lips.
“You can talk about it…if you want.”
I stared at my hands in the dark, seeing they were clean of blood. “No.” I didn’t want the nightmare to become reality by speaking it into the world. I didn’t want to repeat it, to burden Theo with my fears.
Sometimes it was easy to get lost in this new life. Waiting for Theo to come home late at night. Having breakfast with him in the morning. Going out to dinner, sometimes with his friends Axel and Scarlett. We talked about the future like we had a chance.
It made me forget what I was running from.
Made me forget that my ex-husband had punched me in the face, thrown me against the wall, made me do things I didn’t want to do.
But he was still out there, and until he was dead, I would never know peace.
Just the peaceful moments that came in between the chaos.
Theo dipped his head and kissed my shoulder again. “Go back to sleep.” He guided me down, guided me back to the bed and the soft pillow that waited for me. He’d been on the other side of the bed when I woke up, but now, he was right beside me, his arm across my stomach.
I looked at the shadows on the high ceiling before I turned my head to look at him beside me. “You weren’t asleep.”
“No. I’m usually out at this time of night.”
“You don’t have to stay in bed with me.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “I like watching you sleep.”
“You watch me sleep?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “Sometimes.” He continued to watch me, his eyes on my face the way they had been over dinner, like the same face he’d seen so many times was somehow still intriguing.
“Theo…when are you going to kill him?” I didn’t need to tell him who my nightmare was about. There was nothing else in my life that would make me jump out of bed like that. Nothing else that haunted me like a monster in a horror film.
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes somehow looked different. They hardened in both anger and sympathy. “I’m close.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s taken a while to figure out where he is. But now I have a lead, a solid one.”
“Where do you think he is?”
“Rome,” he said. “I’ll take some of my guys and put an end to it. But that means I’ll have to leave you, and that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s a double cross to draw me away from you, but I’m not arrogant enough to assume anything.”
“He has a couple properties around Europe, but none of them are in Rome.”
All he did was stare, like he knew something I didn’t.
“What?”
His eyes shifted back and forth before they hardened. “I tortured one of his guys. Suggested he might be with Carson, and that’s where she lives.”