Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
She turned away from the open door, where she kept glimpsing Joshua as he paced up and down the long, wide room. She hated seeing the blood seeping out of those rake marks, especially knowing Gatita had put them there in her defense. She hated that he kept pressing his fingers to his eyes, to his temples. She didn’t like that tone of sorrow. The look of desolation on his face. Was he really that good of an actor? Sasha had been. Putting one hand on the wall of the shower, she ducked her head and closed her eyes, allowing the water to soothe her. She needed her mind to stop the chaos and let her think.
She wasn’t aware of him until she felt him pressed up against her back. She started to turn, her heart beating hard, her sex clenching. His hand slammed hard into the wall beside her head, palm flat. His arm snaked around her waist and he laid his head between her shoulder blades, breathing her in.
“I told you I loved you, Sonia. I gave you more than I’ve ever given another human being, things about me I wouldn’t want anyone else to know. I couldn’t set you up for a fall. What would be the point? Baby, please. Please. Please. Just listen to me. Hear what I’m saying. Let me in past the hurt and hear me. I need you to do that.”
His lips moved against her bare skin with every word. The water poured down over them. His arm was a band around her chest, right under her breasts, holding her under the spray, but it was the ache in his voice that threatened to drown her.
Tremors took hold, a thousand goose bumps, a million butterflies. She was so susceptible to him because she wanted to believe him. She wanted to hear the honesty in his voice – the hurt. And there was hurt.
“Sasha told me he loved me.”
She felt the sweep of his lashes against her back. His breath was warm. “Did he? Did it feel the same? When I hold you, when I kiss you, when my cock is inside you and I’m moving in you, looking into your eyes, does that feel the same?”
She shook her head before she could stop herself. Tears were close. For him. For her. For her really fucked-up life. “I don’t understand, Joshua. If you love me, why are you holding me prisoner? Why come after me when you knew I wanted to leave?”
“Nikita Bogomolov knows you’re alive. He knows because I hung your painting over my fireplace. God, I love that fucking picture. I stand in front of it and just stare some days when I first get back home. I hate that he found you that way – because I wanted something of you in my home. I hate that he laid eyes on it.”
His palm lifted from the wall and then slammed back down again. “You can’t run from a man like that. I’ve done research on him. Our teams did research on him. I know far more than you’re ever going to know about him because the man is a monster. He won’t stop coming after you unless he’s dead.”
He sighed and pressed his forehead right between her shoulder blades. “I know you’re hurt and confused right now, Sonia. I know it must feel like history repeating itself to you. I should have just sat you down right away and told you. Better yet, I should have blown his fuckin’ head off right there in the great room. I can only tell you that I love you with every breath I take. I want you to feel that. Feel me, not them. Sort us out in your head so you know I’m real.”
The arm around her waist moved so that his hand slid under her left breast, cupping the soft weight, his thumb sliding over her nipple. She told herself to stop him. She couldn’t be with him, not until she knew exactly what he was, what his relationship with Nikita was, but she couldn’t force her body away from him. It felt intimate. It felt comforting. It was Joshua, and she loved him with every beat of her heart. She pressed her forehead against the wall and let tears leak out, hoping the water washed them away before he could see them.
“What does that mean?” She whispered the question. Tired. Tired of being afraid. Of fighting. Of not knowing the truth.
“It means I have no choice but to kill him.”
“Then Sasha would come after you. Who knows how many others? That’s the way it works with them and if you researched, you would know that.” She told herself to step aside, to turn and push him away, but she couldn’t. She closed her eyes and savored the way his thumb strumming over her nipple sent little waves of heat shimmering through her bloodstream.