Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
“N-nothing. He…”
Breathing sharply, he shifts on his feet. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
When it looks like he’s going to go in search of Lucas and probably do the same thing to him that he did to Brad, I grab his t-shirt.
I fist the fabric and shake my head. “No, you won’t.”
He doesn’t like that and it’s clear on his furious face. “Echo, just fucking —”
“He hates me. He truly hates me.”
And why wouldn’t he?
I was a bad girlfriend. I never realized that up until now.
I mean, I knew what I’d done was bad.
But tonight, I got to see my relationship with Lucas in a different light. In a new, awful light. Where I never gave him all of myself. Where all I did was take, make him wait and wait and then stab him in the back.
Why would he want to get back together with me?
Why would he want to have anything to do with me?
“He doesn’t.”
“I never had a chance,” I tell him, hiccupping. “I never had a chance to fix anything because I… broke everything so badly. He was so…”
“He was so what?”
Rivers of tears stream down my cheeks. “Angry. He was so mad, Reign. And I don’t know what I could possibly do to get him to forgive me. To get him to stop. To get him back to you.”
Because somehow, in this moment, that’s the only thing that matters.
To save their friendship.
The one that began on that playground so many years ago.
A growl escapes him. “I told you, didn’t I? You don’t need to worry about me. You don’t fucking need —”
I don’t give him a chance to say whatever it is he was going to because I move in.
Without thought, I put my arms around his warm and strong body, and hug him.
I press my cheek on his hard but comforting chest and drench his t-shirt in my hot tears.
I don’t expect him to do anything.
I don’t expect him to hug me back. He probably thinks I’m being too dramatic right now. He probably doesn’t even like it, even though he let me cry on him the other night.
But he does do something.
After several seconds of being all rigid and strained while breathing wildly, he lets his muscles relax a bit. And then in the most astonishing turn of events, he brings his arms up and wraps them around my body.
I finally drag a breath then.
A hiccuppy breath, laced with tears, but a breath nonetheless.
As I burrow in his chest.
As I hide myself in his body and he lets me. In fact he makes it happen himself when he tightens his hold and puts his large hand on the back of my head to press my cheek to his body even more.
And God, it feels so nice.
It feels like I could sleep like this, pressed up against his summer-like body.
Sniffling, I whisper, “Please take me home. I want to go home.”
He doesn’t say anything but I do feel him exhale a breath and nod, and I close my eyes in relief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Bandit
“You,” I bark at the naked chick riding Lucas as soon as I barge into his bedroom, “get off him and get out.”
I throw her clothes at her to make my point.
Well, I’m assuming they’re her clothes because I picked ’em off the floor just now. But who the fuck knows with the revolving door that my best friend has got going on.
I don’t really give a shit though.
As long as she does what I want her to.
But first she needs to stop screaming and flailing at the sight of me.
“Hey,” I snap my fingers at her to make her shut up, “listen, can you shut the fuck up, okay? No one’s gonna hurt you. Just leave.”
Miraculously, she does listen to me and shuts up, even though her eyes are fearful. Then she grabs the clothes I’ve thrown at her and scurries out of the room, probably embarrassed.
She shouldn’t be.
I’m not here for her and it’s not as if I haven’t seen a naked chick riding a dick before.
I have, and lately, it always seems to be my best friend’s dick.
Who looks miffed that I interrupted his coitus.
He drags himself up on his bed, pulling his pants up to cover himself.
Good.
While I’m not opposed to squeezing his neck while his dick hangs in the wind, I do appreciate the courtesy of him getting his limp fucking organ out of my sight.
And in the next second, I’m pinning him against the wall.
When he opens his mouth to say something, I jam my wrist in his neck to shut him up.
“You made her cry.”
I squeeze his neck with such violence that he starts making choking noises and scratching at my wrist.
But I’m stronger than him.
Always was and always will be.
And I’m made even stronger in this moment with my rage.