Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Lauren’s fingers wrap around my biceps, giving me that sweet hit of candy apple and cinnamon. “I don’t.”
I don’t move. I’m an alpha. There’s no fucking way I’ll back down to a human, especially not a human pretending he has some claim on Lauren.
“Get in the car, Luke,” Lincoln pushes his way between the two of us and gives his friend a shove toward the front of the car. He opens the driver’s side door and climbs in.
Pretty boy–Luke, I guess his name is–walks backward, glaring my way. When he tries to see past me to look at Lauren, I shift to block her from his view.
“Lauren, this is fucked up,” he shoots across the car as he throws open the passenger side door.
“I…I don’t know why you came.” The heaviness–the emptiness–in Lauren’s voice drops my aggression level. A vision of her standing on that cliff with one foot over the edge flashes in my mind.
I turn to face her. She releases her grip on my arm and blinks up at me.
I haven’t seen this look on her before. It’s almost like…she needs something from me. No, that’s not it. Because she doesn’t appear to know what she wants. It’s more like she’s lost but hopes I might have something she needs, whatever it is.
It makes me fucking determined to figure out what it is and give it to her.
“Let me drive you home,” I say gruffly. “Or wherever you want to go.” Because I know I may be the last person she wants to be with, I add, “I know a great cliff you could throw me off.”
Miraculously, it seems I said the right thing.
Her bare shoulders–her perfect, glorious bare shoulders–relax away from her ears. A reluctant smile tugs at her lips. “Oh yeah?”
The Tesla pulls away without either of us looking at it. Her big teal eyes are on mine.
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
I grin back, a spark of lightness I haven’t felt in years dancing in my chest. “Which part? Throwing me off a cliff?”
Her smile widens. She’s so achingly pretty. I want to eat her up. Devour her. Demolish all the boundaries between us and forever claim her as mine.
Of course, that can’t happen.
But I can take care of her tonight.
“Is that a real option?” She lets me touch her, and my hand settles lightly at her lower back to guide her toward my midnight blue Range Rover.
I shrug. “Sure. Let’s do it.” I open the door for her, taking a quick look around to make sure no one sees us, but fortunately, by some grace of Fate, there’s no one else in the brewery parking lot. There’s a security guard at the exit, but he’ll be watching people coming in, not going out.
I shrug out of my suit jacket and toss it in the back seat as I climb behind the wheel.
When I pull out of the lot, Lauren leans her head back against the seat and groans.
“Want me to kill him?” I offer. “Please, I’d love to.”
“I don’t even know what just happened.”
I wait. Lauren and I aren’t even friends–I have no reason to hope she’ll share with me, but, dammit, I need her story. I need to know and understand everything about this enigmatic girl.
My silence works.
“Nothing makes sense to me these days.” She looks over at me. “Including you. Although the wolf-thing explained a lot.”
I try and fail to swallow. My wolf preens over the knowledge that she’s given me thought. That she wants to understand me.
“I haven’t told anyone, if that’s what this is about.”
I clear my throat. “It’s not. But thank you.”
“Luke and I…”
I grind my teeth to keep from growling at those three words.
“He was there for me when my mom died. So I feel like I owe him some feeling, but I’m just…bone dry. Like crying over my mom. I just can’t dredge up anything at all.”
I shouldn’t celebrate that. I really shouldn’t. She’s troubled by her lack of sensation.
She sucks in a breath. “But part of me thinks he was just using me for his own social status. I really can’t figure out why he came out here, unless it was just to say he was taking me to Homecoming. I tried to break up with him on the phone, and he said I owed it to him to do it in person.”
I let out a low growl that snaps Lauren’s gaze to me. “Sorry.” I clear my throat again. “But you don’t owe him jack. He sounds like a prick.”
“He’s not,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. After a moment, she says, “Well, maybe he is. But it didn’t bother me before. I understood it–maybe I was a prick then, too.”
“You said it.” I grin, and she whacks my arm with the back of her hand.
“Where are we?”