Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
The pain in his chest was love.
Daisy reached up and dragged a gentle hand down his face, wiping water and tears away. He closed his eyes against her soft caress and kissed her palm.
He traced his thumb over her swollen lips and asked, “Do you still want to stay?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
The words hung between them in the steam, loaded with everything they couldn’t say. The ache had almost left, but he had a feeling it would take more than one lifetime for the way he wanted her to wear away.
Jack wanted to bury himself inside her until he forgot his own name. He wanted to hold her so close their heartbeats synchronized, and the line between his body and hers dissolved. He wanted her with the ceaseless hunger of a tide that devours the shore. And the wanting was so vast it terrified him more than every other emotion he’d ever suffered.
They had decades of damage to wade through, and it wouldn’t be easy, but the desire was there. He’d do whatever it took to keep her, his beautiful obsession.
She turned the taps, and time slowed. Silence rushed in, sudden and enormous, as the bathroom filled with the soft percussion of dripping.
Daisy stepped out of the shower first, the cool air raising goosebumps along her arms and spine. He grinned as she handed him a warm towel.
“What’s that smirk?”
He unraveled the towel and blotted his face. “Your bottom’s shaped like a heart.”
She laughed. “Were you checking out my bottom?”
His grin widened into something wolfish. “I was.”
“Naughty Jack. I think I may be in the process of creating a monster.”
She turned, purposely waggling her ass as she sauntered away, drying herself as she left the room.
“I think you’re curing one,” he murmured, following her into the bedroom.
Daisy stood stock still in the center of the room.
“What is it?” He followed her gaze to the balcony doors.
The sky blazed coral and tangerine. Pale gold clouds stretched across the heavens, bleeding into vermillion shades of red, and The Preserve darkened to a jagged black silhouette under the burning sky.
“It’s dawn,” she whispered, her voice a mix of regret or awe.
The bells tolled, deep and resonant, the sound rolling across the grounds like a wave breaking against stone. It vibrated through the floor and walls, through the marrow of his bones.
The continuous peal of that iron tongue proclaimed the conclusion of something momentous, marking this significant moment in time before the rest of his life would begin.
Jack’s hand tightened around hers as he stared out at the horizon, watching the darkness recede. He turned his attention to the woman beside him, taking in the prettier view, as a smile curved his lips and hope bloomed.
Dawn was here.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Toll
“Does it fit?” Jack stepped behind her, meeting her gaze in the mirror.
Daisy stared at her reflection. A cross between a stranger and a friend looked back.
“You don’t like it,” he said, reading her expression as he pulled out his phone. “I’ll have another one sent—”
“No, it’s fine.” It hung from her curves like a whispered confession. “I’m just not used to wearing clothes like this.”
Her fingers trembled as she touched the fabric. Not silk, not satin — something more intricate. Lace fine as frost on glass, woven into elaborate, swirling patterns that curled and unfurled like fiddleheads in spring.
The neckline plunged in a deep V that bared the hollow between her breasts. Delicate scalloped trim that softened the audacity of the cut.
She turned to view the back and her breath caught. A swooping V that exposed the full canvas of her spine. And a train that pooled on the floor in soft, ruffled waves of gossamer.
“They also sent these.” Jack held out twin ballet flats, satin and ivory like the dress.
She smiled, grateful she wouldn’t have to walk in heels again. “Thank you.”
Her gaze found his then traveled lower. Another emerald tuxedo, deep enough to be mistaken as black. His dark hair swept back from his face in high, sculpted waves—not slicked or lacquered, but thick and deliberately styled so every strand obeyed.
The angular cut of his jaw looked sharper, the hollows beneath his cheekbones deeper, more predatory. His brows arched with a cruel elegance above those pale, lupine eyes that tracked her with quiet intensity. Every savage inch of him disguised from his Italian leather dress shoes to the bridge of his aristocratic nose.
“You look like you stepped from the pages of a Fitzgerald novel.”
He stepped behind her, softly tapping the delicate earring at her lobe so it caught the light. “So do you.” He met her stare in the mirror. “Reading’s something we share.”
She frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Your essays. You mentioned you liked to read.”
The warm sensation in her chest shifted as if something closed and she dropped her gaze. “I never thought anyone would read my words. I don’t even remember what I wrote.”