Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“Welsh.”
Thirteen
Daphne
“Babe. Babe. Wake up. The results are in.”
I roll over and squint at Logan. He doesn’t look happy or sad. He just looks like Logan—intense. His intensity softens as he takes in my face.
“What is it?” I whisper around the terror in the pit of my stomach. “Did it work?”
He leans closer and for a horrible moment I just know he’s going to say it failed, and hold and comfort me.
But then he says: “It did, baby. It worked.”
I gasp as the fist around my middle abruptly lets go. “Oh my god,” I sag forward, into Logan’s arms. “Oh my god.”
There is so much to do, so much I want to ask him, but his mouth is on mine and in this moment I can't do anything but be with him.
I claw off the bed sheets and my clothes, and clamber onto Logan, our lips frantic on each other’s. He turns so we’re both lying side by side on the bed, still clinging to one another and kissing. I’m breathing him in, deep lungfuls of oxygen and Logan. He is my source.
“I need you,” he murmurs against my throat. He’s still half-clothed, but my hands are up under his shirt, stroking over his acres of muscles. I scoot into place under him and hiss when he breaches my entrance. I dig my nails into his skin, urging him faster. I want him to ride me hard and let our orgasms blow up like a summer storm, quick as lightning. I want to feel him the next day, and forever.
But he won’t let me. He sets the pace, brutally slow, surging into me with increasing force.
Pleasure surges, a white hot force burning through me. I convulse around him, and cry out as his cock continues to batter me.
Orgasms cascade through me, each greater than the last. They hit me from all sides and spin me sideways. The only constant is Logan, rocking over me, grinding against me.
When he finally comes, I hang on for dear life and hope this moment is real.
He collapses over me and I cling to him, not wanting him to shift his weight. He’s my rock, pinning me to earth. My knight who fought Death and won. Strange that winning feels as scary as losing.
I speak my worry before it chokes me. “It might not work again. I mean, we’ll have to run more tests.”
“Already started them.” He raises his head, and his certainty blows my doubts away. “But this is it, baby. We found the answer.”
And I know it’s true.
Logan
I look down at the beautiful woman lying in my arms and my mind starts spinning. I can’t believe we’ve found the answer after all these years. Now we just need to synthesize the production of our new drug.
But it’s only now as I lay here that I start to think through the actual practicalities of that. I just saw the results, verified them twice to make sure I wasn’t getting excited about nothing, then ran up here to Daphne to tell her the good news.
In other plant-based drug trials, especially one based on a limited supply like ours when such a massive amount of product is needed to produce even a milliliter…and Daphne will need a lot more than that…
Now that we know the molecular makeup, we have to create a synthetic form. They did it for Taxol, the cancer drug discovered from the bark of the yew tree Daphne mentioned the other day.
A pit forms in my stomach. But it could take years. Does Daphne have years? But we made the discovery, I could get her in the first clinical trial. As long as we are in control of production.
I glance around us at the cold stone walls.
A makeshift basement lab in a cold, drafty castle is not going to cut it. We need a lab. A fully functioning, fully-staffed lab working around the clock on this.
My chest goes tight as I roll out of bed as smoothly as I can, careful not to wake Daphne. Where the hell am I going to get a lab?
Belladonna has the labs but as the Rose Garden banquet made clear, they’re far more concerned with making their new business partner Adam Archer happy than maintaining any relationship with Daphne. And after punching their golden boy plus having security called on me…
Shit! Why couldn’t I keep my fucking temper under control?
I storm back down the stairs and head straight for the liquor cabinet. But before I can pour myself two fingers of scotch, I slam the cabinet closed.
I need to be clearheaded. Think. Think. I slam my head with my palm.
My mentor left me with this place and a fair chunk of money, but it’s not an unending well of resources. I’ve been sparing no expense as it is, and am running dangerously low on liquid capital. But if Daphne died, what did it matter? What did any of it matter?