Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
My wound can wait, and I want to check over Scarlett.
But Magda gasps from across the room, drawing our attention to her. She’s cut off the sleeve of Storm’s dress, revealing deep scars along the length of her arm. Her face is scarred too, and though she’s done a good job hiding it beneath her makeup, it will never go away entirely.
Scarlett clears her throat and pokes me in the arm. Her eyes tell me what her lips don’t need to. Storm doesn’t like people staring, and I can’t blame the girl.
But Conor, as always, takes longer than the rest to catch on to it. He’s still gawking. And Storm’s flaying him alive with her eyes.
“Ask me what happened and I’ll stab you with the one good arm I’ve got left.”
Dom and I laugh, and Conor looks away sheepishly.
When it’s over, I turn to Scarlett and check her over with my eyes. She’s holding the towel over my wound, fretting over me in a way that is unlike her. And she seems healthy. Safe and slightly sane, albeit a little dirty with crazy wild hair.
It’s all good until I notice the crimson leaking from her heel. And sure enough, when I pull it off, her foot is swollen and bloody.
“Jesus Christ, baby doll, you should have told me.”
“I’m fine,” she says.
“Ye’re not fine.”
She doesn’t let me fuss about it though.
“It’s just a graze, it didn’t even go into my foot. Thank you, obsidian. You’re the one who’s really shot. Half of us are.”
When she looks away, her eyes are watery. I grab her face and pull it back to me.
“This isn’t on you. We all knew what we were doing. And we went because we wanted to.”
“Not me,” Conor gripes. “I went because you told me I could have the weekend off.”
“And now you fucking do,” I say.
“Can we all just take a minute to appreciate how fecking crazy your missus is?” Dom chimes in.
Scarlett smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. And this time, when I pull her against my unwounded side, she lets me.
“When do I get to fuck those guys up?” Storm asks.
I look at Scarlett, and she shrugs.
“I promised her she could play with them for a while first.”
“Aye, of course you did.”
The surgeon’s arrival ends the conversation. Luckily, none of us are too bad off, so she uses local anesthetics to remove the bullets and tend to the wounds.
Crow checks in on us and makes sure we’re all okay before he and the others bail and head back to Boston.
It’s just Scarlett, Storm, and I. And thanks to Alexei’s generosity, we have rooms for the night.
Scarlett makes sure Storm is settled in before she comes back to me.
She looks dead tired and so much smaller than she usually does when she lingers in the door frame. I have no idea what’s going on in that head of hers.
It’s all over now. She is free.
The men downstairs will be dead come tomorrow morning, and she will walk out of here without any burdens left on her shoulders.
But I don’t know if she understands that yet. I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know anything, except that when she launches herself into my arms, I let her. She’s crawling all over me, tearing at my clothes, and kissing me like she’s trying to kill me. It’s violent and needy and insane.
“God, you’re so fucking hot,” she murmurs into my neck. “I need you, Rory. I need you right now.”
I’ve got a bum shoulder, and her foot is jacked up, but those things don’t matter. I grab her and toss her onto the bed, filthy bloody clothes and all, and I take over.
I get her naked and fuck her like I’ve never fucked her before.
Complete domination.
I spank the shit out of her arse because I’m still pissed at her, and she lets me. Of course the little hellraiser likes it and begs me for more.
Whatever residual adrenaline was left in my body is ejaculated into her when I come so hard I nearly black out.
Scarlett does too, leaving scratch marks down my back to claim me.
Neither one of us has energy for a shower. So I tuck her into my arms and kiss her head and am half asleep when she kisses my chest and murmurs against me.
Her one undeniable truth.
“Mine.”
Forty-One
Rory
In the early light of morning, something is different about Scarlett.
I don’t know exactly what. Just that her eyes are softer. Warm like honey, and unguarded.
Strands of golden brown hair tickle my chest as she brushes her lips against me, and her fingers dig into my back.
“Still hate me?” she asks.
It’s a loaded question if I ever heard one. She wants to talk, and I do too, but not until it’s really over.
Until her past is wiped clean.