Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“This is the only warning,” he says softly.
And damn, those eyes. Not icy or impenetrable, but burning with anger, frustration, and God help him…lust.
For me.
He should have never shown me that. He should have kept that secret from me, because I’m even more determined than ever to chip through this armor he’s wearing.
God help me, because before I really only wanted to know Van carnally. But now I’m interested on a little bit of a deeper level.
Now I really want to find out what makes a man such as this.
Van’s eyes bore into mine, and I know he thinks he’s intimidating me into being complacent, but I don’t scare that easily. His fingers press into the back of my neck, perhaps as an additional warning, but all I can think is that I’d love to have him hold me down like that.
After another moment of staring, Van releases his hold on me, and for the first time ever, I hear him stomp through the house. Gone is the grace. He’s walking like a man who’s pissed as hell and beyond annoyed.
He even slams the door on his way out of the house.
I let out a tiny sigh of defeat. I glance at my watch, and I’m going to have to leave for work soon. I plan on spending my shift concocting a new game plan, because clearly what I’m doing so far is not working.
Chapter 3
Van
The front door bursts open and Lucas is crashing through, going to his knees. When he stands up, he lurches, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he’s shit-faced.
I smile in amusement, sipping my own beer. On the evenings that Simone works, I can just kick back and relax. I don’t have to be on guard every damn second, keeping up a constant wall of resistance to her flirting and sexual innuendos as she comes on to me when Lucas is out of earshot.
Lucas tries to take a step forward, but stumbles to the right, where he slams into the living room wall.
Christ, he’s fucked up.
“You okay, man?” I ask as I lean forward from my perch on the couch. I set my beer bottle on the floor.
His head slowly turns my way and his eyes are completely glazed over. He looks at me like he doesn’t even recognize me.
He also doesn’t answer my question, but tries to walk again. This time he pitches forward and slams face first down onto the carpet.
“Jesus,” I say as I come flying up off the couch. I take a step and then go down to my knees, rolling Lucas over onto his back. I expect to find him passed out, but his eyes are open but not really seeing me. There’s a small rug burn on his chin from when he hit the carpet, and he’s lucky he didn’t bust his nose or some shit.
Lucas tries to sit up, and I put an arm under his back to help him. He continues to try to push up off the floor, and I help him do that as well by hauling him to his feet.
“You okay?” I ask again, although clearly he’s not. Not that Lucas doesn’t drink, but I’ve never seen him drunk like this.
“No, I’m not fucking okay,” he slurs, and shrugs my hold off him. I release him and he immediately starts to pitch to the side, so I grab him again.
“Okay,” I say like I’m talking to a child. “Let’s see about getting you to bed to sleep this off.”
“Fuck that,” he yells, and twists away from me so hard I lose my hold. He lurches into the kitchen, looks about blindly for a moment. His eyes land on a half-empty casserole dish with lasagna that Simone had baked earlier tonight. I refused to eat dinner with her, preferring to stay holed up on my room and out of sight of her sinful little body, but I did eat some after she left for work.
It was fucking delicious.
Lucas stumbles forward, picks up the casserole dish, and then to my utter fucking shock, he hurls it across the kitchen with an anguished roar. It hits the wall beside the refrigerator, lasagna exploding in all directions like a bomb had been inside.
“Fucking goddamn Stephanie,” he yells again as he stumbles, then rights himself. He stares at me swaying back and forth, raising a shaky hand to point to me. “Don’t do it, man. Don’t ever fucking fall in love. It’s the fucking pits.”
I don’t bother to tell him he doesn’t have to worry about that from me, because it’s wasted conversation. He won’t remember this tomorrow, I’m sure.
So instead I walk up to him so I can take his arm. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you into bed so you can sleep this off.”
Lucas doesn’t fight me this time, but manages a drunk walk back to his bedroom. I manage to lower him to his bed, where he just stares at the ceiling. I leave him for a moment, going back into the kitchen to get some water. I also grab the garbage can, because I have a feeling he’ll be blowing chunks before the morning hours.