Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
With that he lets my mother go and turns to me.
I don’t know what happens around us then. I can’t tell who goes where; who says what; what happens to my mother. Does my father still look horrified?
All I know is that he comes for me.
He advances on me, his chest dragging up and down, his bruised mouth parted. And I can’t do anything except stand in my spot.
Frozen.
Trapped.
He comes to a halt a few inches away and stares down at me without a word.
For a few seconds I don’t understand what he’s doing. Why isn’t he saying anything? Why is he looking at me like that?
Then I notice something.
His hand.
Between us.
Palm up.
As if he’s offering it to me.
And then it occurs to me that he is.
He is offering me his hand.
Just like his twin brother did all those months ago. At the party that started everything. At least in any real sense. Before that it was a petty girl running after a cold man. But the night of the charity event, I was just a girl and he was just a man and we had a fire between us that we’ve tried so hard to ignore.
“Come with me,” he commands roughly.
And I look up at him.
I want to.
I so want to.
But I’m also so afraid.
I’m also so angry.
And heartbroken.
Is he going to burn me with his fire? Is he going to end me?
I always wanted to die at the end of this story, didn’t I? So is this what the end looks like?
“Please,” he adds.
Which is what seals my fate.
Please.
I’ve said that to him a million times, but he’s never said it to me.
He’s never made himself that vulnerable to say it to me.
So then if this is the end, let it be. If he’s going to burn me, then let him. I put my trembling hand in his large, scrape-y palm and he engulfs it in his hot, hot grip.
And takes me.
Chapter 3
I’m in his room.
His childhood bedroom.
I know that.
Although given that I’ve never been in his room before, I don’t know how I know that, but I do. Maybe it’s the walls that are bare and without any personality. Or the fact that the desk sitting in the corner is bare as well and very generic looking. There’s also a dresser and a chair by the window. All plain and generic and without a sign of life. The nightstand by the bed where I’m lying is bare as well.
Much like all his hotel rooms.
Except a stack of books in a corner by the window.
As always, they’re the only life in this room.
Actually, that’s not true. There’s another form of life and it’s him.
Sitting in a chair, he’s slumped over the bed. His head is resting on his arms and his hand is wrapped around mine. As he sleeps.
Even in slumber, I feel like he’s the most alive thing in this room.
More alive than even his books.
His back goes up and down with his breaths. Back that’s wide and looks like a mountain, and breaths that are deep and somewhat noisy.
Then there’s his grip on my hand. It’s the same hand that he offered me. Back at my house. The same hand that he took again and wouldn’t let go of once we both got in his car, and he drove us here.
To Bardstown.
To his house.
Although I fell asleep halfway over but I have a feeling that once he got me out of the car and put me down here, in his bed and covered me with his blanket, he went right back to holding my hand.
And then there’s the heat of his skin.
It’s… hot.
And not just from the sleep or from how long he’s been holding my hand for, no.
I think it’s him.
This heat belongs purely to him.
And it’s so cozy and comfortable and dear and familiar that I go to get away from it. I go to get away from him because if this is the end and he brought me here to kill me, then I don’t want to make it easy for him.
I don’t want to die without screaming and screeching and fighting.
Without giving him a few third degree burns in return.
My struggles wake him up. With a jerk, he straightens up in his chair, his eyes blinking. It takes him a second or two to get his bearings. As if he was in such a deep sleep that he forgot where he was. As if he hadn’t slept well in days and now that he had finally managed to, he didn’t want to be shaken awake.
Good.
I hope so.
I hope he hated waking up. I also hope that he didn’t get much sleep this past week. Because despite what he did last night, he’d started to pull away from me ever since we got back to New York. Which means my sleep was shaky as well. So I’m hoping his was too.