Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I curled myself into his arms. “It will happen. The best doctors in the world will make it happen. Pop has always wanted to give them more than the money he stuck in her bridal bag. Jordyn deserves a baby.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Are you marrying me tonight, Natasha?”
“Ye—” A pure light source captivated my periphery. Woah. I ran down the hill toward the dock. The sunset hit the lake at an angle that made me frame my hands together, imagining the shot.
That shot.
“Actually,”—I grinned, stepping onto the wood planks—“I’ll marry you tomorrow. At this exact time. Twenty-four hours.”
“No.” He strode over the wood, passing a rowboat that lazed in the water. “Marry me this second.”
Lachlan pulled me into his arms, pressing himself against me. “You can’t …” His voice lowered enough to caress like desire over my skin. “Can’t say no. Not to me.”
“But,”—I began in between kisses—“the sunset. My family … I’ll marry you tomorr―”
“I’ll marry you every day of your life, Natasha. Always be a grand affair. Always be me serving you, loving you, praising you …” He bit the flesh at the hollowest point of my throat. “Turning your every wish into my command. My condition?”
“No,” I purred, hardly coherent enough to string a simple word together. My legs locked around his waist, and he lowered me to the dock. “No conditions.”
The dock rocked gently underneath our weight, wood damp from the loch mist. Lachlan’s lips brushed mine, slow at first, then greedy. This gorgeous man couldn’t drink me in fast enough. His hands framed my face, rough and calloused, yet holding me like I was something fragile.
My pulse raced, skin hot under his touch. “You’re impossible.” The damp wood was beneath me as his weight pressed into me, heavy and delicious. My phone slipped from my pocket and clattered against the planks. Why did people wear clothes? Obstacles.
“Say yes, Natasha.” His hands moved in a leisurely pursuit over the hollowest point of my belly button.
Pure torture. Passion throbbed through me and fluttered my stomach. Why hadn’t I married this man the day we met? Speaking of twenty-four hours, we should’ve walked down the aisle the next day. I moaned against his mouth, tasting the love and the groan on his lips.
My fingers threaded through his tussled tresses. Not even thinking straight anymore, I murmured, “Our baby needs this hair.”
“Nae,” he whispered, “our bairn will have your beauty, your fire. Nothing else matters.”
“Yes, Lachlan, yes.” The dock creaked beneath us, the loch whispering against the shore. For a heartbeat, nothing existed but him—his mouth, his hands—the heat flooding between us. The surge of need. And the race between us to taste, caress, touch.
I popped the first button of his crinkled linen—
Crack. A sound like a subdued crackle rent the air.
The sound snapped the world in half.
Lachlan’s body stiffened over mine.
Crack. Another shot. Rifle. Suppressor. The sound reminded me of Pop and Uncle Simeon testing new weapons.
The dock splintered inches from my head, shards of wet wood spraying my cheek. Someone was … shooting at us!
“Down!” Lachlan roared, twisting us hard. My scream choked off as he rolled us over the wet wood. Wood and sky spun. Then the freezing bite of Loch Ness swallowed us whole.
43
LACHLAN
What in the bloody hell was happening?
I’d gripped, caressed, pawed, and kissed places I’d never dared. My mouth was trailing the swell of Natasha’s breasts. A stuttered cry escaped her when the first shot split the air.
The sharp crack whizzed, a subdued firecracker, and the wood beneath us splintered inches from my head. Natasha’s pulse, wild underneath my mouth moments ago, froze in terror.
Another shot. Instincts took over. My arms locked around her waist, and I hurled us both off the dock’s edge.
The loch swallowed us whole.
Bubbles and dark water surged around us. A bullet sliced through the current, tearing past my shoulder. Natasha opened her mouth to scream, but I pressed her under the dock’s shadow, forcing her against the slats where faint light streamed between the boards.
We surfaced, gasping. My head cracked against the dock’s underside.
“We gotta move,” I rasped.
“Wh-where …” She panted, dog paddling in panic.
My eyes darted to the two boats moored at the dock’s farthest side. One was a small fishing craft, steady and solid. The other, an old cabin cruiser that hadn’t seen a decent oil change since my parents migrated. Both fully exposed.
“Hell no, La—”
“We will die. No one’ll ever know.” My voice was steel, and before she could argue, I hauled her with me, dragging her out into the open water, into the line of fire.
Footsteps pounded the dock above. A shout rang out. “Did you get him?”
Him. They didn’t say them. Just him. A cold bite sank into my gut.
Vassili Resnov.
The bastard’s revenge. I’d been too wrapped in Natasha—her mouth, her body, her yes—to remember the hit on my life.