Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Thick, hard-muscled shoulders and strong, defined pecs taper in to a lean waist, with each ab muscle sharply delineated. Like his arms, his chest is decorated with tattoos that form a dark, intricate pattern on his tan skin. Crisp black hair swirls around his nipples and dusts the middle of his chest, and below, a thicker line of hair bisects his lower abdomen before disappearing into his low-riding jeans.
I’ve never thought of Alexei Leonov as beautiful, but he is. Terrible and beautiful, like some artist’s depiction of a demon.
His ab muscles ripple as he gives a short, harsh laugh. “You think I’ve been fucking other women?”
I force my gaze up to his face. “Haven’t you?”
The expression on his hard features makes my breath catch. “No, my beauty. From the moment our betrothal contract was signed, I haven’t so much as kissed another woman.”
I swallow, instinctively backing away again, and he comes after me, each stride a predator’s deadly prowl. My pulse leaps higher as the backs of my knees touch the bed and he looms over me.
He grips my cheeks, pouting my lips, and leans in, onyx eyes burning into me. “I wanted to.” His voice is a harsh, dark rasp. “Believe me, I fucking wanted to. So many times, I wanted to forget you, to walk away and find someone else… anyone else. But there’s no one else for me. I’ve known it from the moment I saw you in that hallway outside your father’s office, back when you were still a fucking child… a child dressed up and painted to look like an adult.”
He pushes me down onto the bed, and I’m so stunned that I don’t put up a fight as he covers me with his large, hard body, pinning me in place. Holding himself up on one elbow, he twines the other hand in my hair. His gaze burns me alive as he continues thickly. “I thought you were eighteen—seventeen, at worst—but you weren’t even fourteen. And I fucking wanted you. Do you know what that made me?”
I blink up at him, my hands gripping the sheets on either side of me. “I…”
“A pervert. A pedophile no better than that fucking tutor of yours.”
My breath seizes. “Is that why you killed him?”
“He touched you.” Rage ignites in his eyes and reverberates through his voice. “I saw him touch you. All those months, I fought to forget you, telling myself that you were way too young, that it was unforgiveable to want you, and there he was, lusting after you with no trace of shame. Touching you like it was his right.”
I somehow find a shred of sarcasm. “When it should’ve been your right?”
“Exactly.” His eyes gleam in the shadowed interior of the cabin as his voice turns dangerously silky. “That’s when I knew I had to arrange our betrothal.”
His words stun me all over again, to the point that it takes me a second to find my tongue. “You… You arranged it? Not our fathers? But—”
“Oh, they believed it was their idea.” A flash of lightning illuminates his sharp-edged smile. “Your father, in particular, was convinced that it was all his doing… that he was manipulating my family into doing what he wanted.” He loosens his grip on my hair before moving his hand to cup my jaw. A rolling boom of thunder shakes the room, and when it fades, he continues, the tenderness of his touch a stark contrast to the darkness of his words. “The betrothal was the best way to ensure that you’d be mine when you grew up, that no other man but me would ever have you. The alternative—stealing you from your family and keeping you locked up until you were old enough—was going to be my plan B, but luckily for you, I didn’t have to implement it.” His mouth twists. “Or maybe unluckily. I still regret that I didn’t take you away the day you turned eighteen.”
My lungs contract with every word he speaks until my breaths are so shallow I can’t draw in enough air. It’s as if the storm outside is sucking all the oxygen from the cabin, the gusting wind penetrating through the windows and bringing in a chill that invades my entire body, freezing me from within.
Alexei arranged our betrothal.
It wasn’t some business arrangement that he reluctantly accepted because I was pretty. It was something he’d wanted from the start—something he’d orchestrated. After the fiasco of my eighteenth-birthday party, I knew he desired me and intended to go through with the marriage, but I still thought he was just making the best of a bad situation. I ascribed his stalking of me to lust mixed with some perverse desire to adhere to his father’s wishes, but that wasn’t it at all.
When I was just a child, he’d decided he wanted me, and he tied my life to his with a ruthlessness that would do Machiavelli proud—a ruthlessness that’s all the more terrifying given that he’d been only nineteen years old himself.