Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I see Gray struggle with the urge not to smile.
“I bet you wish you could say that to him. He seems like a real fucking dick. I know you’re not supposed to talk to people’s families that way. Feel free to tell my dad he’s an asshole too. He’s dead, so he won’t take offense.”
“I remember when I thought you were so sweet,” he says, shaking his head with a grim smile.
“You don’t like me anymore?”
“I fucking love you,” he says. “I just hope to heaven I can handle you.”
Gray
She really doesn’t give a fuck. There’s not an ounce of tension in her. She’s smiling at me with real glee, and I have to wonder what my father is doing now. Is he fuming? Or did her gambit actually work on some level?
Hard to say.
In the meantime, I focus on logistics. We get a hotel in Lafayette. Calista picks it. It’s nice. Really nice. My father has a lot of money, but I’ve never had as much as this. I’ve focused on the hunt, and sometimes the kill. I stay in warehouses, or sleep in the surveillance van. I don’t get room service or fresh laundry.
“I don’t pay at this chain,” she says, breezing through the lobby with her face card alone. We check in at the counter, where the polished woman behind the desk practically snaps to attention as she realizes who she’s talking to.
“The presidential suite is reserved,” the lady at the desk says. “Thank you very much for your business, Ms. Hart.”
What business, I wonder. She’s not paying for anything. Not that I’m complaining, but I bet these rooms are close to a thousand dollars a night, and for some reason it’s best not to charge her even though she could pay more than anybody else here and not even notice it.
“You look disapproving,” Callie says, giving me a curious look as she eats a complimentary chocolate. “Don’t you like the room?”
We’ve gotten up to our suite, and it is incredible. This is no hotel room. There’s no bed with stiff linen and a weird chair facing the bed for no apparent reason. There’s three rooms all decorated with a sort of elegant coziness that makes me feel more at home than any home has ever made me.
“The room is amazing,” I say. “It’s more like an apartment!”
“I know,” she says. “Three rooms. We’re roughing it. It’s practically camping.”
I cannot tell if she is joking or not. She wanders off to the bed and lies down on it, spreading her limbs with languid grace.
“We need to talk,” I say, standing over her as she lounges on the bed with the unbothered attitude she’s been taking on lately.
“What about?”
“About your behavior. About what happened. About what is going to happen. We need to be prepared for the full moon. If you’re going to shift, it will be then, or…”
“Or?”
“If we have sex,” I say.
Her eyes light up. “Oh, my god, let’s have sex on the full moon. That way we can test the theory to its utmost. I’ll either shift, or not, and we’ll know.”
“Shifting isn’t easy,” I tell her. “The body undergoes rapid transformations and while you will not die, the first couple of times it happens you might think you’re going to. You might even want to.”
“Sounds dramatic,” she says, unwrapping another chocolate swiped from the bowl at the side of the bed.
“Can I get you to care about anything at all, or are you just going to be like an emotional brick wall from here on out?”
She looks at me, and I see a spark of temper in her eyes. “What do you want, Gray? Do you want me to freak out and panic and cry? Do you want me to get upset because something is coming that might hurt? I’ve had a lot of things happen to me that hurt. I’m a woman. Having my body change and fuck me over in the process is literally built into me.”
“It’s going to be more intense than a period.”
Her temper flashes, and she throws the bowl of chocolates at me. I dodge it and go for her, flipping her onto her stomach and spanking her curvy ass hard and fast with quick, brutal slaps. I notice she’s not really responding the same way she did when I first did this, what feels like a lifetime ago in her office. The first time I spanked her, she cried out like I was killing her. This time she’s practically laughing at me.
The hell did they do to her in that place? She is different. There’s no denying it. She’s stronger. She’s wilder. Violence comes to her quickly, and there is no remorse. Not yet, anyway. I’m going to see what I can do about creating some.
I grab her by the hair and lean over her, baring her ass roughly to ensure there’s nothing between me and her naked cheeks.