Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
She snuggled into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I’m legless,” she murmured. “That’s what Niamh says. It means ‘incredibly drunk’. But in fairness— “ She pushed away from him so she could take a deep breath. If she wasn’t already spinning, she would be soon. He needed to take her home. “I really did hold my own. I really did!” She breathed out heavily in alcoholic fumes, closed her eyes, and burrowed her face into him again. “I totally get what Jessie is always saying about a night out with Niamh. I thought—how bad can it be? Well. Let me tell you!” She yanked her upper body back. He held onto her to keep her from pitching backward. “It can be vera bad. Vera—ver-eee bad!”
“I’ll take you home now—“
She slapped him again. Then her hands reached into his hair, clutched painfully, and she slammed her lips onto his again.
His arousal roared through him with the treatment. A tidal wave of passion threatened to take him away. Mustering all his strength, he wrapped his fingers around her upper arms and, as delicately as he could, pried her off.
“Wait, little angel,” he said, breathing heavily. “Wait, wait. We can’t do this now.”
“Take me home,” she murmured, her forehead against his. “Fly me home. Apparently mates fly their women home. Fly me there and make love to me, Tristan. We both want it. I want it. I want you inside of me. I tasted you, now I want to feel you.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned, needing to push her farther away to get his bearings but not wanting her to take it as a rejection.
It was the last thought that sobered him.
“We need to go,” he said, rubbing her outer arms. “I’ll fly you home, but you need sleep.”
“I’m good. I’m okay.” She gave him a one-eyed thumbs up. “She has drunk two or three drinks to my one, did you know that?” She lifted her brows before attempting to turn and point at Niamh. “And he”—her finger vaguely waved in Phil’s direction— “kept pace with her no problem. They don’t even seem drunk. How is that possible?”
“It is not.” Jasper took two wobbly steps closer, his hands on his hips and his hips trying to slide out of line with the rest of his body. “It is not possible. That is the synopsis.”
“Synopsis?” Ulric asked from behind him, leaning heavily against the wall between two tables. He held a half empty drink against his chest, and there was a wet stain below it. “That is not the right word, dummy. How about…sum-der-ay. Wait, no.”
“Go home, Larry, you’re drunk,” Aurora said from a table. She wheezed out laughter and bent over.
Fred sat on the other side of Aurora with her computer open and a coffee cup to the side. Without looking up, she reached forward and moved Aurora’s mostly empty drink away, so Aurora didn’t hit it with her face. Fred was apparently working while playing babysitter. She clearly knew better than to drink with Niamh and Phil.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Tristan tried again, “I will fly you back to the hotel and tuck you into your bed, okay?”
“Your bed,” she stated.
He gritted his teeth. He wanted nothing more in the world, and maybe he would, but he wouldn’t share that bed with her. He couldn’t. He didn’t trust himself to keep his hands to himself.
“Sure,” he said noncommittally. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Her hazy eyes met his and stuck, vulnerability shining within them. “I have a lot of darkness inside of me, Tristan. I have done so many things I’m not proud of. That I had no choice in. But…to protect Sebastian, and Jala, I would do it again.”
Jala was Sebastian’s sister, Tristan remembered. She’d died years ago.
A tear slipped out of her eye. “I killed their uncle. Did I ever tell you that? I don’t really tell people. He’d locked me in the closet again. He used to do that all the time when we were bad, which he thought was always. I’d get locked in the closet because I wasn’t a blood relation and he didn’t want to explain to my drug addled, dead-beat parents what had happened to me. He’d lock me in the closet, and he’d…” More tears fell.
“It’s okay, we can—“
“He’d beat them bloody. I had to take Jala to the emergency room once. I used all my babysitting money to get a taxi. I had to leave Sebastian at home because I couldn’t carry them both and Sebastian wasn’t as badly off. We were just kids. I took Jala in and made up an excuse. She got jumped, I said. Because if they knew it was their uncle, Jala and Sabby would go into the system. They’d be separated and lose track of each other. They insisted I never tell. And so, I didn’t. I just patched them up as best I could. But then one time, he locked me in the closet and it didn’t latch all the way. I got out before the panic set in, and I saw him. He had a hammer. I knew this time, this time, he’d kill them. I just knew it. And so I went to the kitchen, and I got a knife…and I got to him before he got to them.”