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)
Nausea spun in her stomach. She wanted to run. Hide the way she always did.
Instead, she lifted her chin. “Phil is missing. I…I know you were involved.”
Ethan’s business partner. An affable guy Daisy had always assumed ran the straight and narrow. Believed was legitimate. She’d once thought the same about Ethan, too. She knew better now. She held the proof of his dirty dealings, though with Phil, it was only her gut telling her something was very, very wrong.
“Why don’t you do yourself a favor and not stick your nose where it doesn’t belong? You’re a little too simple to be delving into things you don’t understand, aren’t you?” Though his tone was coated in affection, Daisy knew it was a taunt. A warning.
She had the urge to fight him. To let the tears free as she smacked and slapped and pounded her pain and anger out on his chest. Years of submission. The numbness. The turning a blind eye.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“And what are you going to do with the information?”
“I…” She choked off, not even sure how to respond, just knowing she couldn’t sit idle.
His laughter was pure menace, and he cocked his head as he leaned in close. “Don’t fuck with me, Daisy. Your usefulness is running dangerously low.”
He turned on his heel and stalked down the hall, the door slamming behind him. Daisy slid down the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees as she hugged them to her chest.
Searching for courage.
Exhaustion weighed her down. The emotional damage she’d carried for so long.
She shifted and basically crawled to her room and into bed.
Her eyes closed as she tried to reach out for the memory. For the face of the boy who made her believe she could be so much more.
Hazel eyes flashed. An easy, handsome smile. His faint breath on her cheek, the feel of his hands roaming over her, the way they’d never really done.
Her mind spiraled into fantasy. The dreams she’d had of him.
If only she could go back and change it. Stop him from leaving.
She could almost smell him, but she guessed she would never forget his presence.
His impact.
Her eyes blinked open to the darkness. His presence was so thick he might as well have actually been there.
His overpowering silhouette standing across the room at a dresser.
A towel wrapped around his waist with his back to her.
Bare and rippling with strength.
So strong.
So terrifyingly beautiful.
He quietly slid open a drawer and bent down to pull some clothing out.
Need pounded through her bloodstream. An anguished throbbing between her thighs.
She let her hand wander down her stomach, the fear of Ethan long erased by the presence of Cash.
Cash.
She squeezed her eyes closed, desperate to cling to the dream as she dipped her fingers beneath the band of her sleep shorts. A moan rolled out of her as she ran her fingers through her pussy. Her legs parted as she moaned.
A growl suddenly rolled through the room.
Reverberating from the walls.
Deep and dark and powerful.
“Daisy, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
She opened her eyes again. To the man who now stood facing her.
A burning tower in the room.
“I need you,” she whimpered as she continued touching herself. Pleasure licked up beneath her skin. “I always have.”
“Fuck,” he drew out, and he scrubbed a palm over his face before he was at the end of the bed. His hair wet from a shower, his skin glistening in the bare glints of moonlight. “Is it me you think about? For all these years, was it me?”
“Yes.” It strung around them like a filament of desire.
“Show me, Little Wallflower,” he grated. “Let me see you come thinking about me.”
She did. She split apart. Rapture lifting her to another realm.
Bliss streaking through her body as she arched and cried out his name.
“Fuck,” he grunted, then he was gone, flying out the door and slamming it behind him, the wood rattling as he fled. The sound of it jarred her upright in bed.
“Oh God,” I whimpered as I stared at the spot where I was pretty sure Cash had just been.
FOURTEEN
DAISY
It was barely dawn as I blinked my eyes open to the ceiling of Cash’s bedroom. Light pressed in to chase away the haze of sleep and memories and dreams.
I still felt disoriented. Trying to process. To catch up.
Cash finding us yesterday. Coming here. Asking him to marry me. Him leaving then…
Oh God.
A rush of flames consumed my flesh when my mind toppled back to what had to have been a few hours earlier.
Cash had been in his bedroom. His body concealed in that towel. The moan. My fingers. His stare.
What had I done?
Maybe I’d only been delirious. The exhaustion from the fear and the running and the sleepless nights before we made it here snaring me in delusion.
But I was pretty sure that had not been a delusion.