Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Graves held his hands out in front of him. Then he removed his gloves. Her heart galloped. His hands. Those long, beautiful fingers and commanding, powerful hands. The ones she had so rarely seen. Beyond that to the vines that laced his wrists and disappeared up his sleeves in black ink. She hadn’t gotten to see them when they’d had sex. He hadn’t even taken his gloves off then. Her face flushed as the very vivid image of him stripping out of his suit coat and shirt to reveal just how much of his body that ink washed over assaulted her senses.
He cleared his throat, and her eyes snapped back up to his. She carefully schooled her features so that he couldn’t see what she had just been thinking.
“I am a master of my craft. I have mastery over more than one key ability and several smaller ones.” He placed the gloves to the side. “First, I have noise distortion. I can make a room soundproof or close off conversations from prying ears.” His eyes met hers. “Or moans.”
Her mouth opened slightly. She’d thought he was just going to ignore what had happened, but here it was on his lips. She tried not to squirm. “Well, at least Kingston didn’t hear,” she said. “Though he seemed to guess anyway.”
“Indeed,” he said. “As I told you before, I am knowledge, but I didn’t explain further. My main ability is reading.”
She frowned. “Everyone keeps saying that. What does it mean?”
“My body is a weapon.” He held his hands up between them. “When I touch someone, I can read them. I can skim the surface of their mind. I read their memories and whatever is loudest. Usually, their deepest desires and all the pleasure they want. It can happen in an instant or, for those trained against it, it can take hours.”
“Oh,” Kierse said, flustered. She remembered his hand around her throat that first night. The shock in his eyes as he held her in place. Obviously checking to see if he could read her. So deliberate. He hadn’t known what to make of her. “But . . . you couldn’t read me?”
“No,” he admitted. “I couldn’t read you. There were so many times I have wanted to know what was going on in your head.”
“That must have been frustrating.”
“You have no idea. I have spent much of my life learning exactly what and who people are based on a bare touch on the street.”
She bit her lip. “Is that why you always seemed so confused by me?”
He nodded. His eyes, usually so blank, were open to her now. “You make little sense. I have no context. I admit that I had gotten a bit complacent with the ability. I had to learn your body language, the shape of your face, all the things you said and didn’t say.”
He told her about that like he hated it, but something about it seemed backward. Like he’d enjoyed getting to know her. Like not being able to glean information had made him appreciate every new thing he had to learn from her the old-fashioned way.
“Well, I’m glad that you can’t read me. It feels invasive.”
“Hence the gloves,” he said, reaching for them.
Kierse didn’t know what compelled her, but she put her hand on his. “Don’t.” His swirling gray eyes met hers. “You don’t need them with me.”
“Habit,” he admitted, looking uncertain.
“You can go without.” She withdrew her hand.
“All right.” He put the gloves on the table. “I should let you know, since I am telling you my powers . . . that I actually have read you.”
“What? You read my mind?”
“I don’t read minds,” he said with a shake of his head. “That isn’t how it works. I mostly read memories. Sometimes very close thoughts. Things that people are yelling at me. In my business dealings, I use it by drawing the answers to the surface through questioning and then scanning what their memory brings to the surface. It’s not an exact science, but it is how I have become this successful.”
“Using your powers in business dealings is how you’ve gotten the information on Third Floor and the vault.”
“Yes.”
“And I thought you were torturing people.”
His stare was flat when he asked, “Who said I wasn’t?”
She nearly choked. She would put nothing past him.
“And what memory did you read from me?” she whispered, suddenly terrified of what he might have seen.
“When you were in my arms after the wish powder, I had no idea how to help you. I had the medicine, but you couldn’t drink it. You’d drown. So, I tried to read you, and I can only assume what I saw were hallucinations from the wish powder. It was all a jumble from the drugs. You had bruises on your throat and face. You were bleeding from your mouth.” His face darkened. “You were in a gutter.”