Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
“Whatever you think is best. Whatever you want.”
“I think we can concoct an excuse in their minds. I know that it can be dangerous to tamper with memories other than short-term ones, but—”
“We’ll make it work. Okay?” He kissed her. “I will make it work for you.”
The tension eased out of his female. “Thank you. I don’t want to lose him now, not after everything we’ve done.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Kane murmured as he pressed his lips to hers once more.
And then he did it again. Just because he wanted to.
Just because he could.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It was sometime during the early hours of daylight that Nadya felt comfortable enough to go down to the subterranean bolt-hole and use the loo. The two human medics were sound asleep in the front seats of the ambulance, the fact that they could rest so easily sitting up and facing the inside of a garage testimony to exactly how tough-minded they were.
She especially liked the woman, who had been the one to operate.
There were things still to learn, Nadya thought as she flushed. And wasn’t that wonderful.
As she cleaned her hands with an antiseptic wipe, a quick glance around showed a lot of messy clothes strewn about, as well as provisions and survival equipment. The chaos didn’t bother her. It was going to take so much more than some wrinkled shirts and upended boxes to dampen her spirits. She felt like she could fly, even as her feet stayed on the ground—
Nadya froze. Then she went forward on numb legs.
Across the way, hanging from a hook, a flat pan with a high finish was facing bottom out, and it just happened to be angled toward her.
The reflection in it was fuzzy, nothing like that offered by a mirror, but it was enough.
Dearest Virgin Scribe… it was enough.
As Nadya stared at herself, she thought surely there was some kind of distortion at work, some sort of…
With a shaking hand, she reached up and touched her face. Then she furiously felt around her cheeks, her jawline, her forehead. She went up and touched her hair, feeling the growth that had come in, the length—
“Hi.”
She wheeled around. Kane had come down the steps and was on the last one, staring across at her as if he didn’t know what to do.
“How did this happen to both of us?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I wish I did.”
Nadya turned back to her reflection. Her reflection. As in the one of the female that she had been before the acid attack.
“It’s so…” When she trailed off, Kane came up behind her so that she could see his face as well. “I’m back.”
Before she knew what she was doing, she turned and threw her arms around him and held on hard. As she squeezed her eyes closed, she thought it was absurd to think that what she saw now—what she once again saw of herself—was who she had always identified as even after the attack. Because she had been scarred for longer than she had been unmarked.
But then she had had her face stolen from her. And though her insides had remained the same, the outside world would only see the crippled stranger she’d become.
She had hidden herself to avoid the pain of what she had lost.
“I want you to know something,” Kane said, his voice rumbling up through his chest. “You were always whole to me.”
She eased back and looked up at him. Then she touched his face. “And you were always a gentlemale of worth to me.”
As her eyes went to his lips, she wanted him so badly—
“Lucan and Rio are asleep,” he whispered. “Mayhem and the medics, too. We have a little time.”
“Kiss me, Kane. Oh, God, kiss—”
She didn’t have to ask him twice. His lips found hers, and were not gentle. As the toolbox that hid the stairs slowly closed—because clearly he had willed it back into place—he picked her up and carried her over to a cot that was so small, she didn’t think he would be able to fit on it with her.
Unless, of course, he mounted her.
Which he did.
Their clothes were a tangle of interference, but the desperation she had to get him inside of her made the desire to be fully naked something to be pushed aside. With his lips grinding on hers, and her breasts arching against his chest, she split her legs and welcomed him to her core. Everything was fast, fast, fast, for they didn’t know when someone would rouse and there was little privacy here.
“Let me get…” She shoved her hands between them and started yanking at the surgical scrubs she had borrowed from the ambulance. “My bottoms are stuck.”
“Here, maybe I can—”
Bang!
The sound and shock of the hard impact were enough to stop them both, and at first, Nadya thought they’d been shot at or maybe even bombed.