Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
But now that it’s no longer an option, it feels like I have lost something special.
I sit up and hug my pillow. It’s dark, but moonlight fills the room and stripes the floor.
Despite the heat of the evening, my sweat cools on my skin and I shiver. I don’t want to be alone.
Maybe it’s the emotion of the lingering pain, or perhaps it’s the cold longing coiled around my body that makes me swing my legs over the side of the bed and walk toward the door.
I’m wearing nothing but a sheer nightgown as I open the door and creep down the landing to Lev’s bedroom. He might turn me down. He might yell at me and turn me away. But I can’t stand one more moment missing him. This ache. This longing. I would rather him give me a reason to hate him again than sip from the cup of this midnight poison one second longer.
His bedroom door is closed, but it is unlocked when I try the handle. I open the door quietly and creep inside. The room is dark. Quiet.
Empty.
He isn’t here.
I walk to his bed where, only days ago, he held me as I slept. Where he made love to me with deep emotion. Giving me one orgasm after another until my body was weak and exhausted from coming.
In my memories, this room is warm and comforting, a place of love.
Now, as I stand in a ribbon of moonlight and stare at the empty bed, the room grows colder and colder.
I miss him.
I want him.
I pull back the covers and slide in between the sheets and curl myself into his pillow. His scent settles over me, and my longing for him crashes hard through my body.
I hold his pillow tighter as the tears begin to fall, and quietly cry myself to sleep.
34
LEV
I spend the rest of my night in my office, lying to myself that I’m being productive when, really, all I’m doing is trying to avoid going to my room and lying awake in my bed, torturing myself with images of her.
Tension tightens my shoulders, and my lower back aches. I’m so fucking tired. The effects of the vodka wore off hours ago when I decided I was better off working than drinking.
We are no closer to finding Vlad, and the frustration is only fueling my permanent bad mood.
We should have him by now. But the snake has slid off into the abyss.
Hide all you like, motherfucker, but I am going to smoke you out.
I won’t rest until he’s on his knees in front of me, pleading for his life and begging for forgiveness for what he’s done.
I run a palm across the nape of my neck. But it’s not Vlad who’s on my mind tonight. If I’m honest, it hasn’t been Vlad on my mind for the last few days. Every second, every minute seems to solely exist so I can think of her and how it felt to hold her when I fell asleep. How I would wake up in the morning and she would be there, her warmth fooling me into believing that I could have something so beautiful and precious—that it could remain untouched by the darkness of my world.
I fucking ache for her.
And nothing I do seems to kill that ache inside me.
Because Brooke is no good for me. She is a weakness, and I can’t afford to indulge in weaknesses when I’m heading into battle.
Out in the hallway, the old grandfather clock chimes two o’clock in the morning. My head tells me to stay up and keep working, but my body protests and tells me to get my ass to bed.
And let’s not acknowledge what my heart urges me to do.
I’m not going to her.
I won’t let her in.
In an attempt to drown out the annoying voice in my head—the one that tells me to go to her—I leave my office to go to bed. I’ve made up my mind. No turning back. No thoughts about her lying only a few doorways down from my bedroom. But even as I take that first step on the staircase, my lust crashes through me, wanting her.
Needing her.
And it takes all of my strength to turn left instead of right at the top of the stairs.
My bedroom is dark except for a sliver of moonlight peeking in through the curtains.
That’s when I see her.
She’s lying on my bed, cuddling my pillow. Her breath soft. My sweet bratva lullaby.
No.
She’s not that anymore.
The closer I get to the bed, the tighter the knot in my chest squeezes.
She’s kicked off the blankets. She’s wearing nothing but a slip that is so sheer I can see her skin underneath. The hem has slid up to the top of her thighs. I can see the swell of her firm breasts. Her tight nipples. That soft mound between her thighs.