Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 162003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 810(@200wpm)___ 648(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 810(@200wpm)___ 648(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
“You don’t get to ask those questions,” he barked. “Remember?”
“Fine.” I tore my gaze away from him like a scolded child and continued my walk to the trash receptacles. He caught up to me within a matter of moments and waited until I’d discarded the flowers before pulling me into his arms.
“The only thing you need to know is that you belong to me. Everything else, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I insisted. “But you don’t care about that, do you?”
He answered by nuzzling into my hair and kissing his way down my throat while his hands explored my body. It wasn’t fair. He was touching me in all the ways he knew I liked, trying to weaken my defenses.
“You’re cold,” he whispered into my ear, rubbing his hand up my back to grip the base of my neck. “You should go back upstairs.”
“I should,” I agreed.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t while he was looking at me that way. As if he didn’t want me to go anywhere, and that right then, I was the most important thing in the world to him. It was a complete contradiction to everything he was doing.
He cradled my face in his hands and kissed me as if it were the last time he’d ever see me. I secretly wondered if he still thought it might be. That I might bolt at any given moment. And it was then that the truth of our circumstances really dawned on me. I already had the upper hand in this situation. He might have been holding the cards, but without me, he couldn’t win. Whatever this was, he needed me. And by the genuine emotion in his eyes, I wondered if that was a requirement of his game or his heart.
“You get one question,” he said. “I’ll try to answer it as best as I can. But it can’t be anything to do with Brayden.”
My brain jumped into overdrive at the realization of what he was offering. I had so many questions, and some were much more important than others. But the one I’d asked myself again and again was the first to roll off my tongue.
“Why me? Of all the people in the world you could have, why did it have to be me?”
He stared at the ground then up at the sky, as if the answers were up there, out of his reach.
“It couldn’t have been anyone else, Brighton,” he replied in a haunted tone. “Even if I hadn’t been looking for you, there was no way I could have missed you. There’s something about you I can’t explain. But whatever it is, it makes me want you in ways I can’t even describe. It wasn’t because you’re the perfect pawn, even though you are. It was because I wanted you, and nobody else would ever do.”
His words left a bitter taste in my mouth, and a strange ache inside of my chest. But there was warmth too. That was the way it always went with him. Pleasure and pain. They were never two separate entities, but one. And apparently, it didn’t matter to my reptilian brain.
It didn’t matter that he’d openly admitted I was a pawn, or that if I sat back and really thought about what he was doing, I would be able to see it for what it was. I couldn’t take a step back from this situation. I was wrapped right up in the midst of it. Somehow, some way, I had landed in Ryland Bennett’s sights, and now all I could do was hold on for the ride.
There was a deep sense of dread when I thought about what would become of me once this was over. Of what would be left. Because it would end eventually. And when the dust had settled, and Ryland had gotten what he wanted and taken his fill of me, I would have Brayden back. But a part of me feared I would be nothing more than an empty shell. Longing for a man who was the worst kind of wrong for me. The kind who would hurt me at any opportunity he got. And it was this very realization that gave me the courage to break from his hold and walk away.
***
“Everything okay?” Nicole asked as I stepped back into the apartment. “You were gone for a long time.”
“Everything’s fine.” I gave her a soft smile. “How are you doing?”
She stared out the floor to ceiling glass windows of our apartment, taking in the view as she did so often. I wished I could pry whatever was bothering her out of her head, but if there was one thing I’d learned about Nicole, it was I couldn’t rush her. I had to let her speak on her own terms, revealing little parts of herself layer by layer. I used to think I was a guarded person. But now that I’d seen the likes of her and Ryland, I knew it wasn’t true.