Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 79382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
But she was right; I could fucking try.
That shit in the kitchen earlier, that could have been avoided. It was jealousy gone rogue.
I had been working my long game on Mina for months, tried every goddamn thing I could think of to try to get her to take a chance on me. But she had pushed me away at every opportunity.
Then in walked Lazarus.
And, see, I was secure enough to call the man what he was- he was fucking good looking. He was the bastard most heroes are written to look like- tall, dark, handsome, and just dangerous enough.
He didn't even need to flirt with her and she was standing in that kitchen, working side-by-side with him when she had always done everything she could to keep space between us, and she told him shit. It wasn't epic, life-changing shit, but it was pieces to the puzzle. She told him about how much she hated Dutch food, much to her father's never-ending amazement. She told him that of all the places she saw as a kid, there was nothing like Russia. She liked the architecture. She thought it looked like it was out of a storybook. She told him a silly story about the one time Lo made her pitch in making dinner at Hailstorm once and she managed to screw up minute rice.
I lashed out at Laz because it was easier.
Then I accused her of not doing her job because I knew it would get a rise out of her. I hadn't expected, though, that she would call me on my bullshit, that she wouldn't rise to the bait and defend herself, but attack me instead. And the craziest fucking thing happened while she ranted and raved- the switch flipped off all on its own.
And I felt bad about it having been on in the first place.
That was new for me.
A 'breakthrough' as my parents would have called it.
I was curious to see if it was something that could happen regularly with anyone, or if it only worked because it was her, because she just intrinsically got it, because she wasn't the type to take offense to it or back down from putting me in my place.
I wasn't going to get my hopes up too high. After twenty-someodd years, I didn't see myself changing much. But anything was possible I guess.
I could, as she suggested, try.
"Hey Renny," she said, voice sweet, sweeter than I was used to hearing it, sweet as it sounded when my fingers were inside her and she was whimpering and crying out.
"Yeah, sweetheart?" I asked, looking back at her to find her lips slightly parted, her eyes a little heavy-lidded.
"I think maybe I know enough to trust you now," she declared, voice still smaller than usual.
"Yeah?" I asked, knowing what that meant. It didn't just mean she was going to stop keeping me at a distance. It didn't only mean, either, that she was going to give me a chance to prove myself.
It meant she was finally going to stop fighting the attraction between us.
She wanted to take things to the next level.
"Mmhmm," she murmured, pushing forward so I rolled onto my back and she rolled onto my chest. Her arms planted beside my chest and she pushed up slightly to look down at me. "So about these world-class pussy eating skills..."
I smiled then, bigger than I had in a long fucking time.
"Oh, babycakes, you're in for a treat."
ELEVEN
Janie
I was a mess.
Really, that was the kindest way to put it.
I mean my eyes actually hurt. Every time I blinked, it felt like sandpaper scraping across my eyeballs. This was thanks to the crying I had been completely unable to stop the past several weeks.
I hated crying.
But when the person you trusted most in the world, the person who knew all your dark and twisted and ugly, the person who taught you that you could be loved because of them, was laid up in a hospital bed for an extended time, showing no signs of getting better, well, you fucking cried.
They told me to be patient. The doctors, that is. Yes, plural. I wasn't about to trust some two-bit emergency room doctor with Wolf's wellbeing. So I took his advice and that of the cranial specialist and the neurologist and the dean of medicine. And, then when I still wasn't sure, I had Lo find me the leading specialist in head trauma and had him flown down to Navesink Bank to give me his opinion as well.
They all pretty much said the same thing.
The bullets did damage, sure, but they got them out and he was healing. The real problem was the force with which his head whacked off the ground.
I had tried to be light about it at first; I even made a joke about how hard-headed he was. Because, quite frankly, in my head, there was no way he wasn't waking right up. There was no way he was going to be laid up in bed for weeks, wasting away.