Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75792 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75792 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
He’s right. Chris didn’t love me. He never did. And I fed myself lie after lie to make it so that it wasn’t true. To make myself not feel alone in this world.
And I whisper the words I’d never dared to say out loud. “Why does everyone leave me?”
Fear strikes me down, making my knees buckle, but Eli doesn’t move. He doesn’t even flinch as he hugs me even tighter. How could he stay? How could he console a broken girl like me, a girl ruined by her own thoughts, a girl who hated the world she lived in so much she decided to destroy it?
“I’m here … and I won’t ever leave you,” Eli says. “No matter what.”
“But I did. I ran away from you,” I say, guilt eating away at me.
“It’s okay,” he says, silencing me. “I forgive you.”
He was there for me, right when everything came crashing down. When I was at my lowest point, when I actually murdered another human being … he picked me up again and cleaned up my mess. And I forced myself to forget in order to numb the pain.
But I deserve better. I deserve to remember all the pain and suffering so that I won’t ever let it happen to me again. I deserve to be loved, even after all the things I did. Even if I’m a sinner. And in Eli’s arms, I find the solace I’ve so desperately been searching for.
“Now, let’s go home,” he says with a rugged voice that takes my breath away.
A squeal leaves my throat as he swoops me up into his arms.
“Home?” I mutter, confused as to what he means.
But he doesn’t respond. Instead, he keeps his head held high as he marches right back to my apartment building and goes inside. Our bodies leave dripping wet marks on the carpet, but he pays no attention to it as we step into the elevator and ride it up to my floor.
For some reason, I can’t stop staring at the handsome man, one I used to call a stranger, now a familiar face that I wish I could stare at all day long. How did it happen so fast? I didn’t even know I was able to fall until he made me. Until he showed me who I truly am.
Not just a monster … but a survivor. Someone who lives and breathes the pain they suffered carries it with them like a badge of honor. Does he do it too?
With my hands firmly locked around his thick, muscular neck, I let him carry me right back into what once was my home. It feels so strange to be back here with the man who took me away from this life. Like two completely different worlds are intertwining into a beautiful mesh.
He puts me down on the floor and goes into the bathroom, where he turns on the light and the shower. Then he walks to me again and places his hands on my waist. The second his hands touch my skin, I jolt up and down, an unexpected heatwave flashing through my body.
A quirky grin briefly brightens his face. “Take it off.”
My cheeks turn crimson red as I realize what he’s asking.
“You’re soaking wet and shivering,” he says.
And without taking his eyes off mine, he hooks his fingers underneath my top and curls it up over my head, throwing it aside. My arms instinctively cover my breasts, even though he’s already seen them. Before, I didn’t want to hide … but now I do. I don’t want to hide my body … I want to hide myself, my heart … and the scorching hot flames coming off his eyes the minute he sees me undressed.
I didn’t think it could affect me more than it already did, but I was wrong. Especially when his tongue dips out to swiftly wet his top lip.
I gulp when he goes to his knees in front of me and zips down my skirt from the back, sliding his hands inside only to push it down softly along with my underwear. He’s so close to me when he lifts his face, and his eyes bore into mine. I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
And when he presses a soft, delectable kiss to my thighs, I die a little.
The kisses don’t stop. And I don’t pull away either as he draws a line from my thighs all the way up to my pussy, deeper and deeper until there’s no way back. Until there’s only him and me in this twisted, fucked-up nightmare that’s beginning to feel more like a dream after all.
His tongue dips out to lick me, and I grasp the wall behind me, desperate for something to hold. Every stroke he adds is another one that makes me want more and more until I’m left gasping for air. His tongue twists and turns around my clit until a moan escapes my mouth.