Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Henri roared beneath me.
His orgasm spurted in thick, body-wracking jerks.
I lost track of time as we transcended that bed, that room, that fortress, and for a few microseconds of freedom, we weren’t blood and bone but air and energy instead.
And then, it was over.
And the crash back to earth hurt worse than anything.
Every injury from today welcomed me back. Every awful bump and bruise.
“This match will not last.”
Wincing, I sank into Henri’s tight embrace.
I didn’t care he almost suffocated me.
I didn’t care I was trapped on his lap and his body still speared inside mine.
It was just us.
Clinging to each other in the dark.
“You will both burn.”
I’d been injected with a contraception, collared, cuffed, and imprisoned. I’d been hunted, shot, abused, and tormented, and somewhere along the way, I’d become a different creature.
I still didn’t know who that creature was.
I didn’t know how I felt about needing a dash of pain to erupt my pleasure.
But what I did know was…I’d been warned about this.
Adversity had found me, and if I believed in fate and star-crossed destiny, then Henri wasn’t just a man who’d targeted me and made my life a living hell…he’d been drawn to me.
Just like I’d been drawn to him.
Because we were the same.
We were one.
And this was fate in all its agonising glory.
Maybe I’d feel different in the morning.
Perhaps I’d laugh at myself for entertaining such crazy things like twin flames but…as his body twitched in mine, and he sucked in a haggard inhale, another bubble of hope expanded.
If our density was to destroy each other, what if I made a different choice? A choice to save him instead?
Maybe that was what the Vedic astrologer had meant.
That ending up with him wasn’t a choice, but how I reacted to him was?
What if I stepped into his nightmares and maybe, just maybe…figured out how to drag him back into the light?
Ever so slowly, I shifted off my knees, disengaged, then sat back on his lap and wrapped my legs around him. My feet burrowed beneath his stacked pillows, and I hugged him.
I clung to him like a koala all while fresh pain waked through me.
He fell on me, wrapping me in the biggest bear hug of my life.
The way he held too tight.
The way his biceps bunched, and his face burrowed into my hair.
It hinted this might be his first true embrace.
A full body enveloping.
And if that was true, I was sad as well as grateful.
I grew drowsy.
A drugged kind of sluggishness that made my tongue far too free.
Keeping my wits just enough to be wary of the cameras, I pressed my lips to his ear. “If the man who told me to play along with him is still in there, then…play with me, Hen.”
His thighs stiffened to rock beneath me.
He sucked in a shallow breath.
I closed my eyes and poured my plea into his soul, all in order to save mine. “Play along with me, okay? You’re still in there. I know you are. You’re still good. We don’t have to destroy each other.” I kissed his ear as my eyes prickled with tears. “Get us out, Hen. Please...”
Sudden light-headedness tangled my tongue.
A rush of panic for asking such things.
And then nothing but deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
………………………….
Henri
VICTOR MARCHED AROUND WITH HIS hands in the pockets of his black slacks, looking like a furious headmaster. The ballroom echoed with his terse sentences while he scolded us. Every Master had been summoned to partake in breakfast and be witness to the winner of Emerald Bruises.
I swallowed another mouthful of bitter coffee.
The beans had been roasted to perfection. The frothed milk silky and creamy, yet it tasted like dirt thanks to her.
My nightmare.
Il—
Nope.
Still couldn’t say it.
Memories of last night refused to leave me alone.
I couldn’t decide which had broken me the worst.
Her name.
My nickname.
Her tears.
Her initiating sex.
Her asking me to play along with her…
The way she kissed—
Fuck.
My throat closed up.
She’d destroyed me.
Utterly and spectacularly destroyed me.
You know what broke you the most.
I strangled my coffee cup.
Don’t, Ri.
Don’t—
The memory of her touch.
The heat of her closeness.
The exquisite sensation of hugging her—
Too late.
My cock reacted. My heart thundered. The urge to hug her again poured hotly down my weary, achy arms.
Adrenaline and anxiety, greed and gratitude all soaked my system, and my knees trembled beneath the table.
That hug.
That damn fucking hug.
My first.
My only.
And goddammit, I hadn’t been aware how much I’d been starving.
Past starving.
Fucking emaciated for something I didn’t even know I needed.
The strength it took not to wrap her in another hug this morning when she woke in bruise-shot agony. The sheer willpower I’d had to enlist not to scoop her into my arms as she limped out of the bathroom, her chest painted in a kaleidoscope of earthy, brutal pigments. The mark of my teeth on her throat almost pushed me over the edge.