Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
My touching her last night had been nothing but a crime. Taking what had been cut off. Me severed from the goodness. A goodness that would have been mine had I remained clean.
But I’d tainted and destroyed and ruined that good.
I needed to remember it.
But knowing it didn’t do anything to arrest the greed that suddenly pulsed in the air. The darkness ushering it in like a secret dream. Memories of her taste and her scent and her soft fucking skin.
My cock jerked as I looked up to find her staring over at me. Her chest heaved, and her perfect tits pressed against the thin fabric of her tank.
Fuck.
She was gorgeous.
So stunning that my guts clenched and my fingers itched.
Wanting a replay of what had transpired last night.
It would be so easy to reach out and take what wasn’t mine.
Glut on it. Devour the sweetness that she was.
I did my best to cut off the dangerous train of thought and shut the door, but those treacherous imaginings came barreling right back as I rounded back to the other side of the SUV. Unable to stop my feet from taking the path to her.
Daisy’s soft floral scent wafted all around as I eased up behind her as she finished buckling Eva.
It was like breathing the sunshine in the darkness. Standing in the sun in the middle of the night.
A shiver rocked through her at my proximity. Battering swells of severity crashing between us.
“She good?” I asked, my voice raw and low.
“Yeah. She’s good,” Daisy whispered as she edged back, warily turning in my direction.
She was blocked in by my body. The door wide open and concealing her from my family who remained on the porch. Their voices nothing but distant rumbles.
Daisy’s eyes were wide. So fucking deep.
My hand twitched, and I lifted it and let my fingers slip along the contour of her jaw.
“Glad you were here.” I couldn’t stop the confession from blundering out.
Softness filled that understanding gaze, and her tongue stroked over her bottom lip.
Fuck. She didn’t have any idea what she was doing to me. How I was teetering on a quickly crumbling edge. Ground buckling out beneath me every time she did something adorable like that.
“You’re right. They’re the best people I’ll ever meet.”
“No one else like them,” I agreed.
She hesitated before she rushed, “Thank you for bringing us here.”
“Want you to know them.” Another admission I shouldn’t make. But it was there. A gong that rang with my truth.
She’d once been the most important person in my life, and it felt like the shattered pieces were coming back together as my past and present meshed.
Something unreadable traipsed through her pretty features. Or maybe I could read it clearly and just didn’t want to admit to myself what it meant. The hope that burned and blazed from the depths.
I cleared my throat. “We should get out of here and get these kids to bed.”
She gave me an erratic nod. “Yeah.”
I stepped back so she could close the door, then I opened hers. A fool who was reaching out and wrapping my hands around her slight waist.
A rasp of surprise jutted out of her, a fire flicking far and fast. I bit it back and hoisted her up. My hands lingered a fraction too long. Wanting to cling on and never let go.
She turned her head to look at me.
A thousand questions radiated back.
Questions I could never give her the answers to.
I finally forced myself away, shutting her door and rounding the front. Could feel my family peering out through the shadows, their own questions riding free as I hurried around to the driver’s seat. I buckled and pushed the button to start the engine, then I slowly took the circular drive and pulled out onto the long, narrow lane.
Ribbons of silence enraptured us. A binding that held us in uncertainty and a growing sense of need as we traveled. We made it to the end of the lane, Kane’s lit up, the parking lot full, the chaos inside in full swing.
I made the right at the T and passed by the few businesses on the south end of Moonlit Ridge’s valley before we hit the two-lane road that wound up the mountain.
Trees enclosed on all sides. Whisking by as shadows as the moonlight flooded through their leaves.
That quiet so thick it was tangible. As if every one of our secrets could be carved and revealed.
There was something else that lacerated it. Something that cracked and expanded like hairline fractures that weaved through the solitude.
The tension that pulsed between Daisy and me shifted into something else entirely.
Nerves ramping, I glanced in the driver’s side mirror.
A set of headlights had appeared in the distance.
It wasn’t like a car traveling this road at this time of night was unheard of, but the sense I had last night returned in full force. Wickedness cleaving through the air. Talons ripping across my flesh.