Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 125982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
She didn’t move. He gently moved her hands away from her face. She fully expected to see black pupils and nothing else but there they were, the blue eyes that she could swim in. He squeezed her hands reassuringly. She looked down at his strong hands holding hers. Confusion washed over her.
“I need you to settle down. You can’t shout like that. Someone could hear. Come. Snuggle with me.”
“No. Just. Go. I’m fine.”
“Come on, please. I need my own head to stay on straight and I can’t do that if you’re like this. Come snuggle,” he tugged her hand and led her back to the bed and flopped down and pulled her close.
He held her tight. She didn’t hold him back, just laid there sobbing for a good ten minutes. Finally, she got it out of her system and stayed there, shuddering every few moments as she recovered. Tristan kept rubbing her back and kissed her forehead.
“I know, baby. It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.
“How?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“No. How - how could you? You ordered someone’s death?”
He stared blankly at her.
“You said, ‘I didn’t end him’ after that whole Joe thing and then on the phone you said, ‘end him.’ Did you think I wouldn’t know what that meant? Or is it that you just didn’t care.”
“Stop. I told you that this road would be bumpy. Don’t you remember everything I said to you last night? Please don’t get caught up with that stuff. You don’t know the whole story from hearing a few words of my conversation. And besides that, I have a part to play right now; try to remember that. And if I don’t play my part it’ll be bad. For both of us.”
She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her so she put her head back down on his chest and closed her eyes, holding her body stiffly. He ran his fingers through her hair with one hand and caressed her back with the other. He was trying to make her melt into him, she knew it. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Playing a part didn’t have to require ordering death, though, right? Surely he could punish someone without killing them, couldn’t he? Maybe he had much farther to go to being anything remotely resembling human than Kyla had thought.
He laid there with her for ages, holding her, while she stared off into space. After a while she sat up but didn’t look at him, “You can go. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine. I’m staying. I feel everything you’re feeling right now. I can’t leave you,” he pulled her back down onto his chest and held her close, touching his lips to the top of her head.
She laid there staring off into space some more, feeling numb.
A moment later she felt him draw in a breath and then he trailed his hands up and down her backside and tried to pull her pelvis closer. He was erect.
“Oh, no. No. Don’t,” she pleaded, eyes welling up with tears again, “Just don’t right now. I can’t do it, I really really can’t.”
He leaned forward and started to suck on her bottom lip. She placed her hands on his chest and glared at him. She shook her head slowly
“You don’t understand, Kyla. It wasn’t something done casually.”
“You didn’t tell someone to kill someone else for fucking up?”
“No, I did. But you don’t know why I did.”
“It doesn’t matter why. I can’t just be here fucking when someone is dying because you ordered it. The gap between our worlds is so big, Tristan, it’s too big to ---“
He let go of her before she could finish and rose to his feet holding his hands up in the air, his face had a “fuck this” look on it. She curled up and hugged the pillow. He looked down at her on the bed, curled in the fetal position, and looked like he was about to say something else but then changed his mind and left the room in a huff.
She was both shocked and relieved that he knew not to pursue sex with her right now. She wasn’t sure she could take it and was glad that he didn’t push the issue. If he’d tried to force it with her, she was pretty sure she’d shatter into a million pieces and wasn’t sure she’d be able to be put back together again.
She stripped and put on a pair of shorts and tank top with a built-in sports bra and turned the treadmill on. She ran and ran hard for 48 minutes with music blaring in her ears. Tristan had a great playlist and she ran like her life depended on it, like she’d somehow wind up finding the answers she needed on that treadmill. But as hard and as fast as she ran of course it didn’t take her anywhere.