Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
“What?”
“That I’m so fuckin’ wrapped around your little finger,” he says in a low, dark tone, his eyes flashing, “that I come runnin’ every time you call me. Every time you scream my name, I bust down doors. I tear through woods. I beat a man half to death just so I can get to you.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t… I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
A puff of breath escapes him, and his fingers tighten even further in my hair. “Then you should’ve stayed in your bed tonight.”
“My bed?”
“Yeah. You should’ve been sleepin’ in it when I came to the room.”
At this, my movements stop. “You came… you came to the room tonight?”
“Thought you’d run away.” He licks his lips as his eyes rove over my features. “Thought I scared you after last night. Fucked you too hard maybe. Made you bleed too much, left too many marks on your ripe little body. Trashed that pussy so bad and now you don’t want my filthy cowboy hands on it.”
I dig my nails into his hard thighs and shake my head. “No, you didn’t. You… I’d never run from you, Arsen. I—”
“Then I thought,” he keeps going, his thighs tensing around me, “they took you.”
My heart drops at what that means. “The Turners?”
“Thought they came for you,” he says. “They did once, didn’t they? They took everything from me. So they could do it again. They could and I thought this time around I’d fuckin’ burn them to the ground. I’d kill every single Turner on that ranch until I found you.”
My hands fly over to his face and clutch it like it’s the most precious thing in my life. And it is. He’s my husband, even if only for a little while. He’s the love of my life. I don’t want him to suffer. I never want him to suffer.
“Look, Arsen,” I say, trying to get his attention because he looks lost in his own world. “I’m here, okay? I’m with you. You saved me. You—”
“Was almost out the door when Rad found me. Said we could look for you on the cameras. We’ve got cameras all over the ranch. Said I needed to slow down. I needed to think.” Another puff of air that makes his entire frame shudder. “But I couldn’t think. I didn’t think there was time for me to think. Thought I was goin’ to be too late like last time. Then I saw you on the screen, walkin’ through the woods, headin’ to fuck knows where, and I took off. I rode like I’ve never ridden before and just as we were comin’ up the path, I heard you scream my name and I…”
“Arsen,” I say, trying again to get his attention.
But he still doesn’t give it to me, and his next words tell me why: “She died because of it.”
“Because of what?”
“Rawhide Redemption.”
“What?”
“They were lookin’ into it. Back then. They were hell-bent on finding evidence against us. So they could use it and have our land seized. And when they couldn’t find somethin’”—he pauses to take in a broken breath that swells his chest out so much that it must be painful—“they took her instead.”
Oh God. Oh my fucking God. Of course he looked like he was stuck in the past. Of course he looked haunted. She died because of it, because of what we were looking into tonight, and I…
I give in to the urge to kiss him and lean forward. I’m this close to putting my mouth on his when his focus comes back and his fingers flex in my hair. When something brutal flashes through his eyes and he says roughly, “You’re not her.”
And I flinch, a sharp pain piercing my chest. But oblivious, he keeps going, his voice all grunts and growls, “But somehow it doesn’t matter. Somehow, never been able to think straight when it comes to you. Not even in the beginning. Not since the first letter.”
“What about the first letter?”
He watches me a beat before saying, “I did it.”
“You did what?”
“Kept them away,” he explains, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine. “All the other inmates.”
My heart skips a beat. “From writing back to me?”
He licks his lips. “Wanted you to be mine.”
“I am yours,” I say, my fingers trembling on his face.
“And then I did the other thing too.”
“What thing?”
“Sent that professor away.”
I’m shaking now. Shaking and shivering and sweating with how heated he’s making me with his confessions. “The one… The one who made a pass at me?”
His eyes narrow for a second. “The one I asked you to stay away from. But you didn’t listen.”
“You sent him away?”
“Got a cop to do it. To run him out of town.”
“I don’t… I didn’t… You never said anything.”
“Didn’t want anyone comin’ between you and me.”