Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
"I mean it this time. Look." He points up the ridge. "We're going right up there."
I follow his finger to a gap between the trees, sighing in relief. It doesn't seem that far, but distance can be deceptive out here. Mountains that are miles and miles away look as if they're close enough to touch. It's precisely why so many people get lost. Nature is a tricky biatch.
"Let's go then," I groan.
"Rest a minute, Cordelia. We've got time."
"You don't need rest."
A glimmer of a smile touches his lips. "Jealous, Sunshine?"
"I hate exercise." My nose scrunches up. "Actually, exercise hates me. Last time I tried to use the treadmill at the gym, it sent me flying across the room like I was a human cannonball. My butt hurt for weeks."
He laughs abruptly, startling a fluffy rabbit in the underbrush. It darts across the trail just ahead, leaping into the frozen brush on the opposite side of the trail. Tyr barks and jogs after it, sniffing the bushes where the little guy disappeared.
"Tyr, leave it. He's too small to eat."
"You eat rabbit?" I gasp.
"We eat a lot of shit out here, Sunshine. In case you haven't noticed, there is no grocery store up here. If we want to eat, we catch it." He taps my nose. "That's what mountain men do. We live off the land. We hunt and fish and gather and trap."
I draw myself up to my full height…which isn't very high compared to him. "I know I'm your assistant and all, but I'm not hunting anything, Deacon Cromwell. That is not what I signed up to do."
"You signed up to follow my rules, Sunshine," he says, something dark flaring in his eyes. "Whatever I say, no matter what."
"I'm not shooting Peter Rabbit or Bambi."
"But you're fine with squirrels?"
"Are they the mean ones that jump out of the bushes at your face?" I ask.
"You have experience with this?"
"Seattle," I say, shrugging. The squirrels are on another level. We're basically sworn enemies at this point. "But I'm not shooting them either."
He growls, wrapping his hand up in my jacket to tug me toward him. "You don't make the rules, little girl. You follow them."
"Yeah?" I whisper, getting caught in the maelstrom in his eyes again. "I forgot to tell you something, Deacon."
"What's that, Sunshine?"
"Your stupid rules can go fly a kite, sir."
His eyes darken to gunmetal as he yanks me forward, toppling me into his chest. A predatory growl rumbles in his throat like thunder rolling over the mountainside. His lips crash down on mine, one hand wrapped around my throat as he backs me up against a tree.
I moan into his mouth, my entire soul crying out with relief. Ever since last night, my body has ached for this, begging to feel his touch again, pleading for the relief he denied me. I barely slept last night, not because I was nervous about today, but because I couldn't stop thinking about him. About how badly I wanted to sneak across the hall into his room and finish what I started.
I burn for him in ways I didn't know it was possible to burn.
He shoves his knee between my legs, using it to pin me up against the tree as he attacks my mouth, drinking from my lips exactly like he did last night. He's everywhere again, drowning me in sensation. This man is a giant in every sense of the word, powerful and fierce.
"You're lucky it's thirty degrees out here, Sunshine," he grunts against my lips before biting the bottom one. "If it weren't, you'd be bent over my knee right now, telling me how much you fucking love my rules."
"Promises, promis—Deacon!" I scream, shocked when he bends forward suddenly, scooping me up over his shoulder. My hair falls forward into my eyes as the world tilts upside down. His hand comes down on my ass in a sharp smack.
"Stay still, Sunshine," he growls, and then starts marching down the trail with me over his shoulder like a freaking sack of potatoes.
"Put me down right now, Mountain Man!"
"Can't. Busy."
Tyr barks, jumping up to lick my face.
"Deacon!" I cry, punching him in the butt.
He chuckles, the sound bouncing back to me in a haunting echo. "Did you just punch my butt, Cordelia?"
"Yes, and I'm going to do it again if you don't put me down."
The crazy man starts humming.
"Is that Pocketful of Sunshine?" Why am I screeching like a crazy person?
"Yep," he says, the most cheerful thing he's said since I met him.
I was wrong about dying in the woods. Deacon is going to die in the woods because I'm going to strangle him. And I won't even have to hide the body. We're so far in the middle of freaking nowhere, I doubt anyone will ever find his body.
I don't punch him in the butt this time. I bite him, right on his left cheek.