Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 70574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Eli?” I whispered, wondering how he’d found me and noting how fucking sexy he looked in his leather gear, muscles flexing and tattoos flowing smoothly with each movement. Was that normal? How could I be thinking about how hot Eli was when I’d been seconds away from being abducted?
“Yeah, babe,” he answered with a soft smile. “It’s me. Give me a second.”
A second for what?
Still unable to make my legs strong enough to hold my weight or make the alley stop spinning wildly, I remained on my hands and knees and watched as Eli pulled two sets of handcuffs from his BDSM outfit. Hell, I’d thought those were just for looks or kink, but apparently, they worked just as well for subduing criminals. Since he only had two pair, he used them to hook all four men together. I supposed he guessed that the chances of them all waking up at the same time and being able to run away while linked together were slim to none.
As soon as he’d finished, he rushed over to my side. From behind me, I heard the heavy metal door slam against the brick wall as someone roughly opened it and then several sets of footsteps thudded in our direction. Ah…the cavalry. The insecure side of me wanted to immediately chirp that I’d taken out two of those guys but decided against it. What was the point? As badly as I hated to admit it, if Eli hadn’t come along, I would have been chin-deep in shit right about now.
“You okay, babe?” Eli asked as his hands efficiently inspected every inch of me. I felt the remainder of the blood that I hadn’t lost through the cut to my lip and serious nose bleed start rushing toward my cock. Wasn’t that just fucking dandy? Nothing better than everyone seeing you get a hard-on from a clinical welfare check by a fellow team member.
“Tell me where it hurts,” he urged.
“Everywhere you’re touching…so stop,” I demanded, trying to shove his hands away.
“Oh, shit! I’m sorry, Ari,” he countered…without taking his hands away. “Give me a second and I’ll take care of it for you.”
“What the hell happened!” my father demanded, his voice laced with fury and fear.
I glanced in that direction to see my father, Seth, Baker, and Samantha standing there, looking at me with what appeared to be nothing but concern in their eyes, but I knew it had to be something else. I’d ruined Baker and Seth’s evening. Samantha loved Baker, which meant that technically, she had to love Seth, too. My father loved them both. Yeah, evening totally ruined by yours truly.
My father started to kneel next to me, but Eli smoothly blocked him with his overly-sized Greek god body. “I’ve got this,” Eli said as he positioned his body between mine and the rest of the team and miraculously presented a small bottle of germ-killing gel, at the same time. “Give me your coat, Samantha,” he ordered as he started rubbing the gel onto my hands. I would have cried at the sweet gesture if he didn’t have an audience surrounding us.
“My—my coat?” Samantha gasped. “But…but it’s a fur, Elijah,” she argued.
I looked around Eli’s body and noted that she was, indeed, wearing a long black fur coat. The bottom of it was mere inches from the grubby pavement. She clutched it to her chest protectively.
“Yeah, I noticed that. You shouldn’t wear fur anyway, sis. Give me the coat. Now.” Eli glanced up at her and added, “Please.”
It was all it took. She immediately removed the atrocious-looking coat and tossed it to Eli. “I’ll expect a new one.”
“You’ll get a fake fur,” Eli muttered as he carefully lifted me and then even more carefully laid me onto the outrageously expensive coat. He smoothed everything into place to ensure no parts of me touched the icky pavement. To me, he said, “What hurts, Ari?”
“Just everything,” I answered. There was no denying it; I was completely blown away by the sweetness of Eli’s gestures. He remembered my germ issues? As far as I knew, my own father hadn’t noticed my struggles with everything needing to be cleaned and in its proper place. There were some days that my biggest battle of the day was to not straighten all the towels properly because I was afraid he’d notice and ask questions. There’d been a time, years ago, that I’d tried to hide my weirdness from Eli, but it hadn’t taken him long to notice the signs. He’d asked me about it. Called me on it when I’d tried lying. And then supported me when I admitted that an itsy-bitsy issue might exist.
Not wanting to look into his gray eyes because I knew I’d get lost in their stormy depths, I glanced down at my hands…wondering if they were truly clean. Without a word passing between us, Eli squeezed out another huge dollop and cleaned my hands for the second time.