Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
It took a second for me to get to my side and then another few seconds to pull my hands and knees under me before pushing up onto them. For a split second, I thought about trying to stand but realized almost immediately that wasn’t going to happen.
I thought about asking him for help, but if he’d wanted to, he would have already. Just like he’d done last time. Was he testing me? I wasn’t going to ask. He was already doing so much.
I could do it.
It took too long to crawl toward the sink, then even longer to actually manage to stand up. My legs shook as I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath. It took a long time to cup water under the running tap and bring it to my mouth. I didn’t drink enough, I knew it wasn’t enough, but when my legs shook too bad to keep me up, I pretty much slid back down onto the floor and spread out on it.
“Eat the nutrition bar,” a bossy voice said from somewhere close by.
I closed my eyes instead.
I was shaking so hard my teeth rattled.
I had to be morphing into a literal pile of shit. I was turning into the poo emoji on my phone.
I slept but didn’t. I rested, but I stayed awake too, so uncomfortable—that word was the understatement of the century. I would have sold my soul to feel better.
But it was during one of those times that I opened my eyes when I felt myself being moved. Being lifted just a bit. My head drooped for a second before…
Prying an eyelid open even more, I found a leg stretched out in front of me. I was still on my side. Rolling onto my back and ignoring the ache in all my bones, I found The Defender’s face looking down at me. All smooth, unreal skin. All that perfect bone structure. Those beautifully shaped and colored eyes. All that wrapped into one being.
And he was letting me use his leg as a pillow? Why did that suddenly seem like the nicest thing in the whole world? And why did it make me want to cry?
I sniffled, and that unbelievable face tipped down, his gaze moving over me.
I think my heart broke a little bit. “Why are you so beautiful?” I whispered.
He didn’t even sound sarcastic as he answered, “Superior genetics. Go back to sleep.”
I tried to laugh, but it just hurt.
He made a tight, tight, tight noise in his throat as those dark purple eyes moved over me again, the corners of his mouth going flat. “Your fever is worse,” he said. “Get better.”
“I can’t…” Why was I so out of breath? “Just get better.”
“Wrong. Make it happen.”
Even snorting hurt.
“Stop it.”
I sniffled some more.
“Get better,” he insisted in that familiar, rich voice.
I groaned some more and rolled onto my side again, still on his leg. On his thigh.
“Gracie….”
I closed my eyes.
My fever was getting worse—or was already there. I could feel how hard my body was fighting. How even my spine hurt. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a couple hundred rocks with no water.
I burned up while I slept.
I remembered reading about how some people had vivid, crazy dreams when they had a fever. I didn’t dream of shit. I slept and I slept, fitful and restless, remembering every turn and roll, and forcing my brain back to sleep because my head couldn’t handle how bad it hurt and needed the escape.
And in one of those rare times that I did wake up, my back on fire, I found myself in a seated position.
Sort of.
I was shivering, and I frowned at how dry my throat was. And it was that distraction that had me noticing that I wasn’t just sitting up, my back was propped up against something that wasn’t the wall. What…?
There was a thigh on either side of me, two big feet planted flat on the floor. It was on those raised knees that a wrist was propped up on each of them. It was the full-looking forearms covered in a familiar, gray-colored material that had me blinking. They were connected to sturdy elbows and full, strong biceps bracketing my shoulders.
I was wrapped up in the hoodie. Buzzing bare skin was touching parts of me.
Oh.
Scrunching up my face, I licked my lips and tried to tilt my head back and to the side.
He didn’t make it easy for me either, not moving at all. It wasn’t until the back of my head touched what had to be his shoulder, my cheek to his bare chest, that I finally got a good look at the face above and behind me.
Like I didn’t already have every inch of it memorized.
Smooth, healthy cheeks. A mouth with two full, dark pink lips. Brilliant purple eyes that flashed from beneath dark eyebrows.