Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 160791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 804(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 804(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
I do as I’m bid, releasing the muscles in my thighs, and sink onto his lap, inhaling with every inch I take as his face tightens to the point it’s distorted. “Shit,” he hisses, his body softening, melding into the leather. I hold the back of the seat, my chin dropping to my chest as I subtly roll my hips. The doubt is immediately doused. The fire inside reignited. Sweat, blood, death, and sex saturate the air.
James takes my jaw and directs my face to his, slowly thrusting up as he does. My exhale is jagged, my torso rolling. The heat of our combined breaths is beginning to steam the windows, the air damp. “I love you.” He strains the words, and it’s all that really needs to be said. Because why else would I be here if he didn’t?
I fall forward and take his mouth, starting to rock on his lap, soaking up every bit of the pleasure and our closeness. His hot tongue slips against mine, circling lazily, my hands in his hair hold him. And every reason why we agreed to just fuck when we first met comes flooding back. My mind is washed clean, and my heart no longer hurts. Only James can achieve this state of oblivion in me. And now, it’s needed. No cruelty, no death, no injustice. Only pleasure.
If anything should be the death of me, it is this. But I won’t die, I refuse to die. Not when I now have something wonderful and consuming to live for. It’s something more than revenge. Ironically, James can give me it all.
He gulps, his fingers clawing harder into my hips. I pull back from his lips quickly, my pace speeding up, and I watch him coming undone, the mere sight taking me down the same path of ecstasy. His cheeks hollow from his bite. His eyes fix on mine. “More,” he grates, slipping a hand onto my nape and fisting my hair. I rock faster, whimpering, my head dropping back, my mouth opening, my gaze unmoving from his.
It comes at me like a bulldozer, no avoiding it, crashing through my body ruthlessly. My hands shoot to the seat behind his head, bracing against the leather, my body jacking as my climax takes me out. I choke on nothing, trembling, hissing, clenching my eyes shut, doing anything to deal with the sensitivity. I hear his yell through my distorted hearing, feel the hard pound of his hips upward. I ride the wave, everything out of control, my body, my mind, my breathing.
I fall forward, my forehead resting on his throat, my palms sliding down to his bare chest, feeling him. Stroking him. My hands ball, my face turning, my eyes opening. The window is a perfect film of mist. Hazy. Glass but not clear. His heavy breathing is loud, and his arms round my back, holding me tightly.
“I’m going to ask you a question, Beau,” he says, his voice hoarse. “And your answer is final.”
I try hard not to tense and fail miserably. “What?”
“Do you want to leave?”
“What?”
“Tonight. We pack, we go. The game ends now.”
I naturally withdraw, scanning his face for any signs of him taking those words back. There’re no signs at all, his expression fixed. He’s serious. “What are you talking about?” What’s changed? Where’s his grit gone?
“I’m asking you if you want to leave, because if you tell me yes, we’ll go. Now.” His fingertip meets the bridge of my nose and draws a perfect line down the length.
“I don’t understand,” I admit, caught off guard. Is The Bear dead and no one’s told me? Is it over?
“That’s not a yes.” His smile is faint, my confusion amusing him.
“It’s also not a no.”
“So is that a yes?”
“Yes. No.” I growl to myself, clenching at my hair. “I need to understand what’s happening here.” I wrestled with the notion of staying in St. Lucia. I loved the brief normality we’d found, but I didn’t truly let myself settle on it, because I knew there were forces far greater than my need for peace at work. Ironically, it was James’s and my combined need for revenge. But what if that need kills us? What good is finding what you’re looking for if you don’t get to actually have it? And on the other hand, what if this follows us forever, no matter where we go, no matter who we try to be? It could always find us. The only true, safe way out is to kill everything that poses a risk to our future. And yet none of those options are guaranteed. Each carries risk. Leave and we may only delay the inevitable. Stay and deal with it, we might never leave Miami at all. Not alive. “Oh God,” I breathe, so torn. It’s not just James and me now either. There’s Danny and Rose. If we go, Danny will be left to deal with Miami alone, and that would mean while I might find peace, Rose could lose hers. I could never sacrifice someone else’s happiness, a friend’s happiness, for my own. My conscience would never allow it.