Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
She grabbed her margarita and headed to Trent while I worked to gather myself. Praying, praying, praying that it wasn’t bad news about our kids.
I nearly toppled over when I realized what I’d thought.
At the claim my heart had made.
Ours.
I meant it to my soul.
And crap, I’d never been in so deep, and there was absolutely no climbing out. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to bask in all his glory for my entire life. Wander around in his darkness if it was required, but truthfully, I believed the two of us made each other better.
Held each other’s goodness like a treasure.
I’d hold all his bad places, too.
I moved that way just as he was shoving his phone into his back pocket. He felt me coming, and that severity flash-fired across the space when he shifted to find me heading his way.
The world moved on around us while our spirits slowed.
Winding and wrapping and binding.
My hand was extending for him right as he snatched my wrist. He pitched a sigh of relief at the contact.
“Little Dove.” His voice was rough.
“What happened?”
“Come with me.”
He hauled me through the roiling crowd toward the left side of the expansive building.
Kult was walking toward us.
“Cover for me,” Milo told him as he passed.
Kult just nodded, the two of them clearly in sync and used to tossing orders at the other.
I could barely keep up with Milo as he led me down a hall toward the private party rooms, and he tossed open the door to one that wasn’t being used.
Inside, it was dark, and he reached over and flipped on a switch that tossed the luxury suite in blue-tinged neon that barely cut through the shadows.
Shivers raced. Both in terror and desire.
“What happened?” I demanded that time when Milo lumbered out into the middle of the room, standing away from me and roughing both hands over the top of his head.
“Got a text.”
It wasn’t too much of a stretch to guess who it was from.
“What did it say?”
Milo whirled around, fury on his face. “It was an address plus a time and date.”
So much hatred rolled out with the response that it nearly swept me from my feet.
“To where?” The question trembled from my mouth.
“A vacant building that’s only inhabited by devils and fiends.”
A lump obstructed my airflow as awareness hit. “He wants you to fight?”
He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing beneath his beard as he gritted out the words, “It seems so.”
“Why?”
“I’m guessing he has a ton of money on me. Or maybe he just wants to prove that he still owns me. That he can push me. Manipulate me. Remind me what he did to Autumn and dare me to defy him again.”
“What are you going to do?” The question convulsed through the dense air.
“I’m going to find him and end him before it happens.”
“Milo.” Fear spun around his name. Fear that he might be hurt. That I might lose him. That he might lose himself if he didn’t stop this monster.
Because I could see the darkness there, lurking in the depths of his eyes.
The golden yellow tinged in aggression and violence.
“Warned you that it might get ugly.”
“This is more than ugly, Milo. This is—”
My words clipped off when he suddenly stormed my way, erasing the space. Without warning, he lifted me from the ground and crushed me against him.
Energy crashed.
A thunderclap.
A strike of lightning.
He held me against him with one arm while his other hand twisted in my hair. “It’s disgusting, Tessa, but men like him are vile, wicked to the bone, and the only thing that can be done to stop them from destroying everything that is good and pure is to wipe their existence from the earth.”
Tremors rolled through my body, a rush of alarm.
“You see it now, what I’m capable of?” It was a challenge.
“You’re a good man,” I mumbled, our lips so close, our breaths panting into the other.
Severity curled through the room.
Flickers of light at the edges of my blurred sight.
“I’m not. But I will be everything I can be. For you. For my kids.”
“Then you do what’s right. Whatever it takes to protect that.”
He dove for my mouth, devouring the words on my tongue.
“Don’t deserve you,” he rumbled at my lips as he was grabbing a handful of my bottom. A moan got free, mixed with the wisps of words that I breathed back into him. “Everyone deserves forgiveness, Milo. Redemption for what they’ve done. I think you’ve paid your penance, suffered enough.”
“I could never gain atonement for what I did. And somehow, I got you. You, who’s pure fuckin’ bliss. How’d I get so fuckin’ lucky?”
“I am kinda amazing.” I forced some lightness into the madness, but he just swallowed it down with a growl, turned, and carried me to the grand piano on the left side of the room.