Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
The beer tastes good when I take another swig of it. I’m not even a beer drinker usually, but for some reason, it’s refreshing tonight. I guess I just don’t want to think or care about anything else right now. But sitting here next to Nico makes “not caring” hard to do.
“You both rescued me tonight from the goons at that nightclub and also delivered some of the worst news that I’ve ever heard,” I say as I turn to look at him. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel about that. I can’t decide if you’re my enemy or my hero. I think I’ve been vacillating between the two my entire adult life.”
“Trust me,” he shrugs. “I’m no hero.”
“Perhaps not,” I shrug. “But it’s getting a hell of a lot harder to keep thinking of you as my enemy, especially when you keep saving my life. Although I’m not really sure that I want to be saved anymore. What kind of life is it when you’re all alone in the world?”
“You’re not all alone in this world, Elle,” Nico says as he sets his beer down on the nearby end table and reaches his hand up to sweep the hair out of my eyes. “You never have been.”
Before, we shared a kiss and then gave in to our most primal desires, it was passionate and reckless, filled with lust and fueled by an almost forbidden sense of heightened emotion. But now, as Nico’s pale blue eyes stare back at me, I feel a connection to him like I’ve never felt before. Instead of chasing after the sheer physical attraction that has been building between us this whole time, I feel tenderness in the way that his hand grazes my cheek as he moves a strand of my hair. I feel a deep emotional intimacy that I thought I wasn’t capable of feeling. It feels as if the man who has tried for years to close himself off to everyone else is finally letting himself be present and vulnerable with me.
Tonight, he isn’t a ghost at all. Tonight, he’s mine.
Confronted with the devastating truth about my own family, I wrestle with my own moral complexity. Here I thought I wanted to uncover the truth, never realizing that the truth was even darker than I feared—and also infinitely more beautiful as I stare back at the man who hasn’t left my mind since the night this all began.
He leans forward, pressing his lips to mine in a way that is soft and slow, and a deliberate sensation of yearning passes between us as our mouths meet.
It’s strange how my life can crumble and resurrect so many times on a whim. The night my mother was shot, my entire world changed, and the best parts of it ended. I spent so much time rebuilding it after that. I was driven by a purpose, a quest for truth, even if it was a misguided one. Tonight, all of that came undone again. The man who was supposed to be my father and my protector turned out to be the monster I’ve been searching for this whole time. And the man who was supposed to be my enemy is now the man with whom I feel the safest. It’s as if everything is upside down and the opposite of what it should be. And yet, I feel more okay with it than I should. Deep down in my psyche, it feels like a part of me was hoping the Ghost would turn out to be my savior all along. Like in that fairytale where the princess kisses the toad, and the amphibian turns out to be a handsome prince. Except this time, it’s a ghost instead of a frog, and I’m not a princess.
Nico’s tongue wraps around mine, and he tastes like everything I need tonight—comfort, affection, understanding. He’s the only one who truly knows what I’ve been through, the obsession for justice that I feel, because he’s been through it too. He’s the only one that I feel like I can trust, as insane as that sounds.
I lean against him, moving my body closer to his as I reach around his shoulder and pull him closer. My words spill softly into his mouth as I whisper to him.
“I wanted to hate you,” I say as his hands trail down the front of my body, loosening my clothes and making my skin erupt in a sensation of excited tingles.
“I know,” he says as he continues to kiss me. “I tried to let you hate me. I tried to keep you away.”
“You failed,” I say as passion overwhelms me.
I reach for his pants, dipping my hand down the front of them and wrapping my fingers around the stiff cock that presses into my palm.