Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Silence fell for a while before he yawned. “You have a point though. Maybe we should ban ourselves from sex outdoors, just to be safe.”
He said it so dryly, so matter-of-factly, I burst out laughing.
He raised an eyebrow, his gaze warm and tender. “Now what? What did I say?”
I struggled to talk around my snickers. “You think a bed will survive better than a forest?”
His jaw tightened as I stupidly directed our already highly suggestive conversation back to the subject of sex. “My bed is pure redwood.”
“So were the trees.”
He smirked, male smugness filling him. “Are you saying we’ll do more than just crack the headboard?”
“I’m saying I’m not responsible if the curtains catch fire.” I held up three fingers in an oath. “I hereby absolve myself of any broken furniture.”
“What about if we destroy the entire estate?” he asked softly, darkly.
I groaned at the fading stars. “God, can you imagine.”
“Want to see what damage we can cause right now?”
“And summon a blizzard during foreplay? How will you explain to Auntie Mei and Uncle Wen when we decimate a pavilion or two?”
His eyes burned like twin coals. “Keep going, Rook, and I’ll do my utmost to make you come so hard you flatten an entire mountain.”
I choked on lust so hot, so sharp, I almost detonated there and then. “Hypothetically speaking...if you kissed me right now, would you burn that lounger to a crisp?”
He went instantly, lethally still. “Want to try it and find out?”
“I think we’ve caused enough disasters for one evening, don’t you?”
“It’s morning.”
“Even more reason to keep our hands and...mouths...to ourselves.”
“You,” he replied far too calmly, “are dangerous.”
“Me?” I squeaked.
With a groan, he readjusted himself, tugging at the black trousers he’d found in his wardrobe. “You’re the most dangerous person I’ve ever met, and after this...after the river, I hate to tell you, Rook, but you don’t get a choice anymore.”
“Choice? What choice?”
“About your future.” His eyes caught mine. “I’m your choice. Your only one. Your only choice is me because I’m never letting you go.”
I melted even as frost crackled over my arms. “Keep talking like that and I’ll return the favour I owe you.”
His eyes ignited. “Well, we’re no longer twenty thousand feet in the sky, so if you want to suck me off...I have no objections.”
Oh God.
Images of sucking him, licking him...right there on the terrace.
Behave. Behave. BEHAVE.
I did my best to sober up before I did something that would alert the staff that Lucien was well and truly living up to his name of Furnace Heart. I eyed up my empty cup. “You know what? I’m cutting myself off. I’ve had way too much.”
He just leaned over and splashed more deliciousness into it. “I’m curious to see how much more it would take before you stop behaving and straddle my lap right here.”
“You heard me?”
“Mm.”
“I hate you,” I whispered, hiccupping a little.
He chuckled with a smug smirk. “Only because you know you want it.”
The double entendre set my cheeks blazing again.
The sun crept higher. The valley glowed. And somewhere in the distance, another flock of birds took flight, blissfully unaware that the real threat to the local infrastructure wasn’t the weather.
As companionable silence fell, my thoughts inevitably went to all the things I was avoiding. My fingers strayed to my empty throat, wincing a little at the loss of my pendant.
If Lucien was right and it had been the cause of all my suffering, I should be glad it was gone...
Sighing heavily, I made the mistake of thinking out loud. “Tomorrow...or today when we wake up after we sleep off this wine...I’m going to call Frank.”
Lucien shot me a lazy glower. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“Probably not but I am the boss and he does work for me, and out of anyone, he’ll know if my parents truly did do something to us. He might know all about this R gene business and—”
“And if they did?” He narrowed his eyes. “If they are the ones who did this to us...how did they even get access to me? I was born here. To twins that were forced against their will to create me. I never left Ashfall Cliff. Not until the day Marcus took us to England to solidify his takeover.”
I froze, recalling what Laura had said. “Apparently, his parents were brother and sister. They were forced to have a child because the board wanted the purest blood to run it.”
“So that’s true?” I hiccupped, trying to stay focused despite the alcoholic haze. “Your parents were related?”
He looked away as if the subject was painful. “They were. And they killed themselves because they refused to make another.”
My hands balled as anger billowed. A quick snowstorm flurried, covering Whisper’s black pelt in little white flakes.
The panther snorted in his sleep.
“Marcus and all the men who did this to your family need to pay.”