Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
She gives me a look that I find very hard to read, but which I know I should pay attention to.
“You just seem hungry,” I say.
“I like pizza,” she says, looking down and nibbling at the slice she already chewed massive bites out of.
I sigh inwardly. I didn’t want to make her feel self-conscious, but it seems that’s all I’ve done.
Ella
Why does this feel more awkward than being abducted twice before did? Luke seems sweet, but he’s not the same caliber of man as his older brothers. Leo and Aiden are unique. Luke feels more familiar.
He has intensity to him, and charisma, but it’s not the emperor energy of Aiden, or the fucking apex predator sort of vibe of Leo. Luke feels like he could set the world on fire and not care for even a moment.
When I look at him, I see recklessness, sweetness, danger. He’s built like a Minotaur. And he wants nothing more than for me to be happy. That should be enough, but it’s not, because this isn’t real. Sitting here, on this couch, eating good pizza… this is something friends do. And we’re not friends. We are strangers, and he just abducted me.
And that, to me, is the good part.
There’s something wrong with me, I’m pretty sure. I should be so grateful to be in his presence, and to be somewhat rescued from the others. But I feel like I am being rejected somehow, or denied something I should have because we’re just making polite conversation over pizza.
Luke is hot. A hot fucking mess, but I am not anybody to judge in that regard. He has this wild energy that he’s trying so hard to rein in. It’s like watching a bull in a china shop, except I am the china shop, and in this case the bull is tiptoeing around pretending to be a normal customer.
“What are you thinking about? You look concerned.” He asks the question with a furrowed brow.
“They’re going to come for me. And they let you take me because I belong to you too according to them. So… are you going to…”
I’m basically asking him if he’s going to use me.
“Do you want me to?” He catches my meaning instantly. “Are you asking me to…”
I can’t possibly say I am asking him to fuck me, but the last week or so of my life has been one sexual escapade after another. And now it’s wearing off, I’m starting to remember things I don’t want to recall. If I were still in Aiden’s presence, my mind would be full of nothing but pleasure.
“You want to be good,” I say. “But the good brother would never do what they want him to do.”
“You’re not here because of my brothers. You’re here because you deserve to be something other than captive.”
He says that, but I don’t believe him. He is playing the good guy so fucking hard, but it’s not authentic. Deep down, he’s the same as the others. He’s a man who is holding me captive, but he’s doing it with pizza and soda, and an intensity of expression that makes me feel like a steak on the grill.
“I’m not like them,” he repeats.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I shouldn’t have…”
“But I do want to eat,” he says, reaching out to me. His hands settle on my hips, and for a moment I don’t know what is happening because it seems so at odds with the almost teenage angst energy we are experiencing right now.
“We just ate…”
“I want you,” he says. “I listened to Teddy talk about you for hours. He adored you. Then I saw you at the cemetery and I just knew I had to have you. Knowing that both my brothers got to you first is…” He shakes his head. “It should have been me. That’s what Teddy would have wanted.”
I choke up a little. I know better than to cry. Nobody can be allowed to see my pain, or my guilt.
“I should have gotten to you first, but I fucked around and I got high and I fought strangers, and I told myself I was enacting a plan, but it wasn’t a plan. It was a shitty waste of time, and it meant they got to you first. I’m sorry.”
“What would you have done if you had found me up front?”
He looks at me with smoldering eyes. “I would have made you mine so completely nobody would ever have been able to take you from me.”
“Oh? More than Aiden and Leo did?” I am teasing him a little, which is a dangerous and frankly unhinged game. I know he doesn’t like how I was taken by them.
“Yes, more than them. They are brutes and tyrants.”
“But you’d do something different?”
“I would. Let me show you.”
Luke picks me up and he carries me to the bedroom.