Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“If you try to run from me, Little Bride…” He stares at the tips, his thumb circling a small piece trapped in his fist.
“I’ll regret it?” I finish for him, reminding him he already issued this particular threat. “News flash, I’m no fool. If I were going to make some sort of plan to run away, I sure as hell wouldn’t be dumb enough to try and set it up while I was within these walls.”
His eyes snap up to mine, my hair still loose in his grip.
“If you run from me,” he repeats, dark hazel eyes intense on mine. “I will find you. I will bring you back, and I will chain you to me.”
“You forget.” I hold his gaze, refusing to move an inch, my elbows locked tight and spine slightly aching from leaning in the way I am, but he doesn’t need to know that. “You’ve already done that.”
“So you understand now.”
“Understand what?”
“That there is no you without me.”
Anger heats my skin, and when I respond, it’s through clenched teeth. “Then that must mean there is no you without me.”
Slowly, Enzo releases my hair, pushing to his full height, and silently leading my body to do the same. He comes around the edge of the table, stepping right up to me, right into my space, and grips my chin between rough, yet gentle fingers.
“That.” His eyes burn through mine. “Is exactly what it means.”
My brows snap together, my brain having expected him to say something of the opposite effect. I open my mouth to say what, I don’t know, but the words die on my lips when the doors to my left open, and he turns to see who’s entered.
I don’t know who it is and I don’t care. The only thing that exists in this moment is this corded neck directly in my line of sight.
Angry, welted skin stares back at me, then, precise lines the color of red fucking velvet curve and curl and I’m barely able to hold in a gasp as shock shudders through me.
I don’t realize I’ve reached out to touch him until a hand latches around my wrist. Based on how Enzo’s head snaps back my way, his eyes narrowing a split second before his hold on me loosens to a ghost of a touch, I would say it was just as much a subconscious move for him as it was me.
My eyes fall back to his neck, and as if he just realized why I reached out at all, his chest expands in my peripheral.
Rather than stepping back or letting go completely, he gently guides my hand closer, until the knuckle of his thumb is pressed to his own collar.
My gaze locks on his, and I swear the green in his disappears, but I can’t hold his stare any longer. My eyes are commanded, forced back to his skin by some invisible force I can’t control, and my insides spin and flip and tighten.
Confusion swirls in my mind.
Longing leaks behind my rib cage.
Neither makes any sense.
Slowly, my fingers edge closer, and when I feel the small slashes, the gasp I held off slips. His skin, it’s molten. Literally hot to the touch.
“What did you do…” I marvel.
“What I’ve wanted to do for a long fucking time.”
Our eyes collide and I swear electricity sparks as if we’re two stripped wires pressed together. It’s unnerving.
He doesn’t explain.
Doesn’t say a word in fact.
Enzo releases me, backs up, and walks right out the door.
Like we weren’t in the middle of a confusing conversation.
Like he didn’t say without saying he would stop me if I tried to leave the house.
I stare after the space he disappeared, so in my head that I jump when a sharp chime rings out, followed by another. My eyes slice to the little white bag and I walk around the table, hesitantly peeking inside. A phone sits right there on top, a pillow of tissue beneath it.
A small smile finds my lips as I reach in and pull it out, the case a sleek boxlike shape, small specks of glitter highlighting the soft jade color of the phone.
It chimes again in my palm and I flip it over, sucking in a sharp breath. The screen is lit up with the small green envelope alerting me of the messages I heard come through, but that’s not what has my toes curling in my slippers, it’s the photo on the lock screen.
It’s Enzo and I the day the magazine girl mistook me for my sister. My back is pressed to the railing and he’s leaning in, my hand in his hair and his on my hips. Our eyes are locked and the expression on our faces almost makes me blush. We look scandalous. Ravenous.
We look like we’re in love.
The phone vibrates again, so I swipe my finger up and it unlocks immediately.