Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 69286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“I needed answers,” I respond to his earlier question in an attempt not to talk about how attractive I do find him. I want to hate him right now. In this moment, I want to scream and shout, but I’d rather have him talk to me like an equal, and I know losing my shit will only have him shut down again.
“And I promised to give them to you.” His expression is stern as if I’m a child who’s about to get grounded for being bad. “But if you insist on acting like an insolent teenager, I’ll happily lock you up and treat you accordingly.”
“I just don’t want to be in the dark anymore, and somehow, I don’t…” Shaking my head, I push to my feet, and that’s when I realize I’m wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a strappy top that fits tightly against me as if it were a second skin. Lycan’s expression turns dark. His pupils widen, turning the normally green irises into black, but he doesn’t smile.
“You don’t?” A dark brow arches as he regards me with curious need.
“I don’t trust you.”
He considers this for a moment, and I almost expect him to admonish me for what I’ve just said, but instead, he smiles. “Good. You shouldn’t.”
“I’m supposed to marry you, but I can’t trust you?”
Without responding, Lycan rounds the desk, stopping inches from where I’m standing. His hands land on my hips, and he holds me close, pulling me the last hairsbreadth until our bodies are flush. “I’m dangerous. I’m lethal. And I’m almost certain I will make you cry a lot more throughout this strange relationship.” His brutal honesty scrapes against his throat, causing it to sound heavy, like tires on gravel.
For a long moment, I allow myself to stare at him. This close, even in the dark, he’s utterly breathtaking. In such a way that I could forget how I came here. I could even push aside the fact that my father signed my life over to him. I’m still convinced he’s a bastard, but he’s right.
He is bad for me.
He will hurt me.
But even so, people I thought were keeping me safe all my life were clearly lying to me. The realization hits me suddenly—I’m alone. I don’t have my parents to save me, which means I have to save myself.
My decision is made. I lock my gaze on his and nod. “Then allow me to learn more about the man I’m vowing to spend the rest of my life with.”
22
Lycan
Her request shouldn’t be difficult for me, but it is. I can’t deny the thought of someone knowing me inside and out scares the shit out of me because nobody has ever burrowed their way into my life, or my mind, for that matter. But those wide, cocoa irises seem to dig into me, and I allow her for a split second to see the fear bouncing around my mind before I shut down once more.
“I don’t appreciate my wife snooping around my office.”
“Soon-to-be wife,” she throws back, a small glimmer of a smile taking hold of her plump, pink lips, which has me hungry to devour them. I could sit her on my desk. I could also spread those long, slender thighs and feast on her sweet cunt. Temptation to do just that runs rampant through me, and I wonder what she’d do if I were to take hold of her and pin her to the smooth wooden surface and have my way with her.
Would she fight?
I would want her to. I hunger for a woman with fire to show me just how strong she is against someone like me—a beast, a wolf in an expensive suit. I step into her, my feet touching hers, the warmth of her skin burning through me.
Scarlett gently reaches for my face, her palm cupping the scruff at my jaw, sending need coursing from her tender touch to my brain. Messages of wariness hit me in the chest, but this girl, this innocent woman, can’t hurt me because she’ll never be able to find the one muscle in my body that would crack if I allowed it to. It has been locked away for so long I doubt it works besides the fact of keeping me alive.
“What you’ll find is not something you’ll be able to handle, little red,” I tell her earnestly. The truth scores my esophagus, the raw honesty reminding me of just how bad I am for her.
I wanted to save her.
I wanted to claim her innocence for my own.
When her father signed the contract, I convinced myself she’d be better off with the devil than a monster. Perhaps it’s because I believed her sweet light would slowly snuff out my cloying darkness.
“You don’t know me very well, Lycan Shaw,” she tells me, both hands holding onto my face. Her thumbs circling my stubble. Her gaze drinks me in like a fine wine, but I’m nothing of the sort. I’m a smoky whiskey at best.