Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Kellen—”
“Hear what I’m saying to you. Really listen. It’s too late. I dragged you into this and now you’re on his radar, and no matter what I do, he’ll find some pretext to use you against me. The only way I can keep you safe now is to claim you as my own. To keep you and kill for you. I know you don’t want it, but too fucking bad. There’s no alternative.”
She releases a strangled sob and she snarls at me, half raging and half crying, and fuck, she looks so beautiful. I lean forward and kiss her cheek, tasting her tears, and she tries to pull away but I keep her held there with my fingers gripping the roots of her hair.
“Mine,” I whisper in her ear and her body reacts to my hot breath against her flesh like I’m running my fingers down her spine. She shivers and as I move along her chin, I feel her lips part, her heart racing. I sense all the hairs on her exposed flesh standing up on end and I know, I fucking know, that if I reach down between her legs—I’ll find her dripping wet.
“All mine,” I say as I claim her mouth with my own.
I kiss her hard, brutal, unyielding. My tongue slips between her teeth and slides against hers, and she releases a whimper of submission that makes me so hard it’s like I might break. I tighten my grip and kiss her, drinking her in, diving between her mouth and conquering her, because there’s nothing left but to give herself to me, not if she wants to survive. Those whimpers, those moans, the way her hips press against mine, I know that she wants this as much as I do, and she hates me as much as I hate her, and all these fucked-up and confusing emotions swirl between us, but none of it matters. History has a way of repeating itself and ghosts can’t stop their own haunting. None of it matters.
Because there’s this kiss, and there are her hips, and there’s my cock pressed against her, and she feels it. She feels every inch of it.
I pull back, breathing hard, loosening my grip, and in that instant, she twists away. I let her go and she stumbles until there are a few feet between us, her fingers touching her lips like they’re bee-stung and swollen. She looks gorgeous, cheeks pink, breasts rising and falling fast, and I want to lick her nipples and hear her moans as her back arches underneath me. I want her exposed and mine, all mine.
“Don’t do that again,” she says. “Or next time the shovel won’t just cut your arm, I’ll jab it straight into your fucking chest.”
She turns and runs off, leaving me there dripping blood into the dirt, smiling wide.
Chapter 10
Tara
That kiss. That stupid, aggressive, intense, uninvited, freaking kiss.
I can’t get it out of my head. Even after a bottle of wine and some very intense knitting and one ill-advised session of self-gratification in the shower that involved even more detailed daydreaming about Kellen’s hands on my body and his fist in my hair and that thick, hard thing between his legs and still I keep thinking about his lips against mine.
What is wrong with me? How could I have loved that so much when he practically shoved me against him, nearly ripped my hair out, and forced his tongue into my mouth?
And yet I’m still ringing with his touch. I feel the ghost of his lips on mine and his taste lingers in my mouth. I can’t stop thinking about his arms and his smell and what he said, over and over. Mine. Claim.
Crap.
I decide to head into the garden. It’s just before dark, but the sky is clear and there’s enough light illuminating the path to see by. I head out to finish planting the flowers I started earlier in the day before Kellen came and tongued me into submission and left my brain a stupid soggy mess filled with horrible dirty fantasies of him bending me over, spanking me raw, and fucking me until I scream. And again, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but something clearly is.
Because I hate him. Right? I have to keep reminding myself or else I’ll forget and give in.
I hate Kellen. I hate all the Hayles, every last one of them, for what they did to Cait back then. Their neglect and their myopia. With them, it’s always been more about the family than any one person in particular, and it was like Cait drowned in their world unable to keep her head above the water. If they’d been able to see beyond their own petty wants, they might’ve noticed her deep and horrible pain, the pain that became more and more obvious as the years progressed, but instead she sank deeper into her addiction and covered the pain with drugs and anything that numbed her.