Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 69662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I scrubbed my hands over my face and suddenly felt so tired. Emotionally and mentally, my body feeling like it wanted to shut down.
Everything had been silent for a long moment, but I wondered if Kostya had left, and so I found myself standing and walking out the door, down the hallway, and stopping when I got to the main room.
The kitchen was to my right, the living room to my left. Aside from an average-looking couch that sat in front of a TV that hung on the wall, and a bookshelf with some haphazard titles shoved in the nooks, there wasn’t much else to take up the space.
I swept my gaze across the room, and as the light from the setting sun filtered in through the partially closed curtains, I froze as I saw the chair pushed back in the corner of the room, shrouded in darkness.
Kostya sat on the leather chair, and aside from the waning sunlight pouring in, the only other light in the cabin came from the small light above the kitchen sink.
The shadows were intimate as they wrapped around him, as if they couldn’t bear to let any of the light touch Ruin.
Ruin. Kostya. The boy who turned into a man who was now a monster.
“They took me away that night. But I had to say goodbye even if you wouldn’t know. I wanted to leave you something to remember me by.”
I exhaled as I remembered that part painfully. The necklace he’d given me felt heavier as it hung around my throat.
He shifted slightly on the chair, the leather adjusting to his massive size. He brought his arm up and drank deeply from the whiskey bottle.
Although I couldn’t make out the features of his face, I felt him staring right at me.
The awkward silence stretched on as he kept drinking from that bottle, neither one of us speaking, the air in the room feeling heated, more oppressed.
“Did my stories make you sad?” he finally said after taking an especially long pull from the bottle.
I curled my fingers around my shirt, one that was actually mine. After I’d stayed in the room, I changed into the clothing he brought for me—soft leggings and a tunic.
My feet were bare, but I was blessedly covered from head to toe, undergarments included. For some reason it made me feel as if I were more protected, having this barrier against Kostya and my warring emotions that confused the hell out of me.
My throat was dry, my mouth feeling as if I’d been chugging sand. I couldn’t form a word in that moment as I thought back to his stories, how I felt all day because of them.
“Yes,” I said honestly but he didn’t respond. I didn’t even think he blinked. “But I’m more angry than sad.” Even in the darkness I could see one of his eyebrows cock up.
He leaned back, the leather making a soft sound as it adjusted to his weight again.
He had one elbow resting on the arm of the chair, the other one lifting up again so he could take another long drink. When he set the bottle beside him, I watched as he ran his tongue over his bottom lip.
“Is that so?” His voice had no inclination, his tone even, as if he were almost bored.
I didn’t know why that made me feel so on edge.
“Yes.”
If he wanted the truth I’d give it to him, at least as much as I could for as long as I had the courage.
“I’ve been sad for the last decade. I was heartbroken knowing you left,” I said and took a step forward. “Destroyed you didn’t say goodbye.” A part of me knew it was stupid to go any closer. He was like a caged lion but the door wasn’t locked.
“Heartbroken? Destroyed, huh?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
I tried not to take it personally that he sounded almost amused by my statement, because I knew despite the exterior he exuded, Kostya did care for me in his own fucked-up, twisted way, I supposed.
He might not look at me the same way he did all those years ago, but I was his. I knew that as much as I knew the blood rushed through my veins and the air filled my lungs.
I knew that as strongly as I was aware I was stepping closer, feeling any kind of hesitation leave me, any kind of uncertainty wash away.
In its place was a dark tendril of buried emotions, raw feelings, and so much need that I felt suffocated from it.
But when I heard this low, animalistic sound leave him, I stopped. I was still close enough I could see his nostrils flare as if he scented the change in me.
He ran his finger up and down the neck of the bottle, and the task shouldn’t have been as sexual as it appeared, but it was and had heat starting to pour between my thighs and explode outward.