Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 146034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 487(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 487(@300wpm)
Uncountable choices that edged us in one direction or another. Shaped us for the good or bad.
But as I lay there gazing down at Savannah, I wondered how many moments in a person’s life could be given the title of monumental.
One single instance that changed everything.
One single encounter when you knew you would never be the same.
No question, the days my kids were born were on that list.
Not to mention the stark, gutting tragedy of what had happened to Brianna.
And now I had to believe this moment when I held Savannah had become a part of that, our breaths shallow and our hearts a crashing thunder where they beat at our chests, battling to get to the other.
Or maybe…maybe it had been the second I’d leaned down into the door of her car, and I’d caught those aqua eyes staring back. Maybe that was the second she had reached into my soul and altered my eternity.
Now, her cheeks were flushed and sweat drenched her skin. She smiled up at me, and there was that feeling. Rising up and taking over.
“One of the best days of your life, huh?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m going to give you a couple minutes to recover, and then I’m going to make it even better.” I couldn’t help the tease, but it was laced with the dense severity that clung to the room.
The energy lulled but more powerful than it’d ever been.
Heat deepened that flush, but she grinned in that sexy, taunting way that had me aching to take her all over again. “You seem so sure of yourself, Officer Patterson.”
I growled at her razzing, joy tugging at my mouth. “I thought I told you not to call me that?”
“Oh, that’s right, you prefer Hot Cop.” Her grin spread. Dazzling and panging through the middle of me.
Growling again, I rolled us over, so quickly that she yelped. She giggled when she found herself straddling me at the waist.
Fuck, she was stunning, that tight little body bare, the dusky pink nipples of her tiny tits peeking out from beneath the fall of dark-blonde hair.
Shoulders delicate and that chin fierce.
“What am I going to do with you?”
She laid her hands flat to my stomach and leaned forward an inch. “I think the more pressing question is what are you going to do to me?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
She attempted to hide her affected smile, and the mood was swinging between us, both light and heavy.
Profound and easy.
“First things first, I’m going to do this.” She yelped again when I angled up, sweeping her into my arms at the same second I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. I carried her into the attached bathroom, and I flicked on the light above the vanity. I carried her to the counter and propped her on the edge. I ridded myself of the condom then dug into the cabinet, pulled out a washcloth, and ran it under warm water.
I edged back to stand between her legs, spreading her knees and pressing the cloth to that sweet spot between her thighs. She hissed a small sound then whimpered as I ran it over her flesh. “How do you feel?” I asked her.
She hesitated for a second before she looked up at me, no shuttering to her expression, just pure vulnerability. “Shattered.”
Monumental.
I pulled her close, my free hand at the back of her head as I murmured at her ear, “Yeah, Savannah, I’m shattered, too.”
“I never thought I’d feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to.”
I eased back, my hand still holding her at the back of the neck. “Sometimes what we think will hurt us most is the very thing we need.”
“I didn’t come here looking to find you.”
A soft puff of air escaped my nose. “No, it was me who found you.”
Warmth mixed with her uncertainty, and I pushed into the space where I’d known she’d been keeping me out. “Why did you come here? What were you looking to find? And don’t tell me it was because you were passing through and liked the town.”
A war went down in her expression, and I could feel every reservation that had held her back since I met her rise to the surface.
The fighter.
The survivor.
The one who’d been failed by every person in her life, so she’d come to rely wholly on herself.
“You can trust me,” I murmured. “You don’t have to go everything alone, Savannah. Not anymore.”
She chewed at her bottom lip, and her attention fell away before she whispered, “You remember I told you that my sister was thriving and doing well after everything that had happened to us?”
My stomach twisted in dread. There hadn’t been a chance at missing her devastation when she’d mentioned her sister before. “Yeah.”
She blinked a bunch of times like it was difficult for her to process through the memories. “She had been doing so great, Ezra. She had gone back to school, but she really wanted to be a fashion and makeup influencer. She found so much joy in it and was truly happy for the first time in her life.”