Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
“Is every night in your world so beautiful?” I ask, gently stroking the gloved fingers on my stomach.
Tristan laughs and rests his chin on my shoulder. “Honestly? No, but just wait until you experience a blood moon. Everything gets soaked in a red glow. Let me help you envision it.” Before I realize what he’s doing, Tristan pulls a thick strand of his long hair over my eyes like a blindfold. It’s flattened enough for me to kind of see through the red hair that smells of smoky herbs and sea salt, and I let my imagination run wild.
A world of magical ruins and strange beasts, illuminated by a red orb high above.
“I think I’m gonna love it there,” I rasp despite the uncertainty still looming in the pit of my stomach.
When the horse stops in front of the entrance I know that time for thinking’s over, and I look over my shoulder, meeting Tristan’s eerily luminescent eyes. “May I sleep on it?”
He smirks. “May I come with you?”
He has the kind of unshaken confidence that makes my heart stop. It’s so reassuring in a world of hot-and-cold guys who don’t know what they want and then ghost me anyway. And still, inviting him in feels so very naughty.
Tristan gets off the horse to help me down, like the gentleman he is.
“I… don’t usually do this…” I mutter, embarrassed that I’m explaining myself in the first place. I slide off the saddle and right into his arms.
“Oh, I do this all the time.” Tristan presses a kiss to my lips. I’ve waited for that since last night, and it’s even sweeter than it was in my dream.
Which wasn’t a dream?
Am I dreaming now?
I might just be, because his lips are making my knees weaken until he needs to hold me up.
My head’s spinning. Little jolts of electricity travel over my skin. And I don’t want him to stop. “Please, come inside…”
“That’s a request I can’t wait to fulfill,” Tristan whispers against my lips, his handsome face so close to mine, so warm and smooth. I’m tall, but he’s… really big, and I can’t help but be attracted to it. I’ve always had a soft spot for the shoulder pads on football uniforms, and those spiky pauldrons he’s wearing have the same effect on me.
So many of the things on my mind are too embarrassing to voice, but I still want to, in case this is a hyper realistic fever dream, and he’ll soon be gone forever. “Show me how you’d do it, in your world. How would you impress me? If I wasn’t Gloombane’s promised, how would you court me?” I tease, struggling to keep my breathing even as he caresses my cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“I’d start off like this…” Tristan leans down and picks me up so fast I grab his neck like it’s my second nature. “Then show off my wings…” It’s nighttime, but the ambient light from various streetlamps and Halloween decorations is still enough to let me see the giant, shadowy wings that appear behind him. They’re the leathery, bat-like kind, yet somehow still see-thru. “Because you have to admit they’re pretty impressive, right?”
I shiver, overwhelmed by the impossibility of what I’m seeing, but when I reach out toward them, my hand doesn’t go through a projection. The wings are sturdy yet delicate like the finest silk. “Careful, I might never be impressed by anyone else again,” I say, and while I try to make it sound like a joke, I am serious. Who could possibly compete with… this?
“I sure hope so.” He makes the wings lean into my touch, and then he lets them slide around us, cocooning me against his chest. “I rather like having you all to myself.”
I can barely breathe as emotion crashes over me like an avalanche, because what the heck am I doing? I don’t know this man, and he admitted to doing this all the time, yet here I am, with a swarm of butterflies cozying up in my belly.
I want this night to never end, so I’m forever stuck in this impossible dream of perfect love. “Thank you for saving me from the river.”
When the cocky grin turns into something I can’t describe in any other way but soulful, my heart beats ever faster. I could lose myself in him, and make what was meant to be a silly rebound after Richie my whole personality.
“Destiny guided my hand, but when you told me how you died, I knew you were the right choice.”
I chuckle, gently wrapping a strand of blood red hair around my finger. “They said chivalry’s dead, but I have my very own knight in shining armor.”
“For you, I will polish it every night.” Tristan gives me another kiss, and I’m glad he’s holding me, because my knees are soft. “Where do we go?”