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)
Lust rages through me. But it’s not the strongest emotion crashing into me right now. There’s another more potent emotion, vying for my attention. Craving. It’s so powerful it’s making me dizzy. You could join her, it tells me. You could end this agony by simply climbing in behind her and pulling her into your arms.
I sweep my gaze over her again.
No, there’s no going back, no matter how much my heart wants it. I would rather have this agony of longing than feel that stab of betrayal and heartbreak when she decides she doesn’t want me again.
I pull the blanket up over her long legs to her waist.
Then quietly leave the room.
I don’t sleep. Instead, I take my car and drive around the city, hoping the sights and sounds of my favorite city in the inky early hours of the morning will calm the venom roaring in my veins. I don’t know how long I drive for. But sometime after sunrise I find myself outside the apartment of Agent Michaels.
I watch him leave right on seven o’clock, and follow him as he goes about his morning routine. He wolfs down a coffee and bagel from Bernie’s Coffee Stop. Then smokes a cigarette outside the diner before picking up a paper from a newsstand near the subway.
There is a lot I could do to this asshole.
I could wait in the shadows, and when the moment is right, grab him and slide a blade across his throat, and watch him bleed out on the ground at my feet.
Or I could kill him slowly with bullets to various parts of the body that would give him a slow and painful death. Parts of the body like the knees and the stomach.
But killing him would be too good for him. He doesn’t deserve the peace it would bring.
No, before I’m done with him, he will know the sting of losing something he loves and all the pain that follows.
Just as he has done to me.
35
BROOKE
He’s not there when I wake up the next morning. Which is actually good because, in the stark light of a new day, I can see that my coming to his room last night was a big mistake. It blurred the clear line he drew in the sand yesterday when he used my own desires against me to pay me back for running away.
Feeling stupid, I quickly sneak out of his room and hurry along the hallway to my own room. But like the universe is conspiring against me, as I approach the staircase, I walk straight into Lev, who is coming up the stairs. I take a step back, and we eye each other like enemies.
Which I guess we are.
He’s made that very clear.
It’s then I notice he’s still wearing the same clothes he was wearing yesterday. His shirt is open far enough I can see the Zarkov tattoo across his chest, and his hair is messed up. Maybe it’s the hormones getting the better of me, but I suddenly wonder if he’s been with another woman. After all, I was the one who got off yesterday afternoon, and he wasn’t. And I had felt his arousal. Felt the hard outline. Saw the carnal flame in his eyes. Heard it in his voice. His desire was a wildfire burning hot and fierce.
But he didn’t want me.
Immediately, my jealousy gets the better of me. Did he take care of it himself, or did someone else do it for him?
He never came to bed. Where was he all night?
I’m not a jealous person by nature. Or suspicious, come to think of it.
Maybe if I had been, I might’ve seen what a philandering jerk Wilson was—
No, I’m not going to apologize for being trusting and naïve. I’m done with beating myself up because of other people’s actions.
I’m also not going to let this jerk in front of me make me feel something as heavy and consuming as jealousy.
“Miss Masters,” he says with a sharp tone.
“Mr. Zarkov.”
He towers over me, and I’m suddenly caught in his heat. His scent. That dark gaze.
“Were you looking for me?” he asks, his voice too controlled.
His gaze sweeps over my breasts and my hard nipples poking through the flimsy fabric, and all I can think of is how his lips used to wrap around them and suckle and lick until I begged him to fuck me. I quickly wrap my arms around my chest to cover them, my cheeks growing pink under his heated gaze. Does he think of that, too, when he looks at me that way?
Does he remember how good it felt to slide his tongue over the perky nub and suck?
My lips part, and my breath quickens. The air between us is tight with unsaid words and unquenched need. The way he is looking at me. My body recognizes being this close to him, and she couldn’t give a shit about hating him right now.