Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
“I’ve got news for you, Hailey…” He murmured it in that low, growly voice before he reached out and ran the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip. “Your daughter is special.”
My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Was nearly crushed. Was nearly freed.
I tried to shake myself out of the stupor, to knock myself out of the trance he held me under.
Hypnotized.
I jumped when my phone buzzed in my pocket, and Cody carefully watched as I shakily pulled it out.
Pruitt
You’re going to learn what happens when you toy with me.
Alarm coiled like a snake, and a frown pulled deep between Cody’s eyes. “What is it?”
When I found I couldn’t make myself form the words, Cody gently pried my phone from my hand, and his eyes dipped to the message before they bore back into me.
“What that motherfucker is going to learn is that he can’t have you, Hailey.”
My throat was tight, and the fear I’d been running from erupted, breaking free of its barricades.
“I don’t think I know what I’m doing,” I admitted.
Cody tossed my phone to the couch before he took my face between two massive hands. He leaned in close, his lips a breadth from mine. “You’re fighting.”
I curled both hands around his wrists. “I want to be strong enough.”
“You are, darlin’. You are. You’ve always been.”
I gulped, and the air was too thick. Dense and heavy. Pulsing with that energy that in that second felt far more powerful than the demons that hunted me.
And his name rolled off my tongue, nothing but a desperate plea.
“Cody.”
TWENTY-SIX
HAILEY
The second I set it free, he had one arm wound around my waist and the other gripped onto the back of my neck as he pulled me flush against him.
Gold-flecked eyes danced in the muted light, a second of searching before he murmured, “I don’t want to fucking pretend that I don’t want you, Hailey. Don’t want to pretend like there isn’t something more to this.”
There was no hesitation after that. His mouth crushed against mine, urgent and as desperate as I felt.
This kiss? It was fevered.
He spun me and spun me, never breaking that kiss as we fumbled our way across the living room and kitchen toward my bedroom, hands gripping and mouths searching and hearts thrumming.
We banged through the opening, and the second we made it inside my room, he pressed me to the wall next to the door.
I gasped against his lips.
A hand weaved into my hair that earlier I’d let free of its braid, and he tugged my head back as he pulled back for a beat.
Hunger blazed in his eyes.
It left no question I was about to be devoured.
I wanted it. I wanted to be consumed. Consumed in a way I’d never been before. In a way I knew only this man could do.
“Fuck me, Shortcake. What have you done?” Cody grated it as he reached out and quietly shut the door with a soft snick.
Glancing at me, he flipped the lock. The tiny metallic sound bounced through the room like a promise.
A covenant.
Inciting.
Provoking.
Instigating a disruption that couldn’t be contained.
He dove back for me, and his tongue stroked into my mouth to lick against mine.
It was a tangle of greed.
A snaring of lust.
Desire sparked with each crucial lash, a life-beat that spread through my body and pumped through my blood.
I drove my fingers into his soft, damp hair, and I hung on as he kissed me into oblivion.
As reality fell away and the only thing that mattered was this moment.
“Cody.”
“I’ve got you, darlin’,” he rumbled into the manic kiss, my feet barely touching the ground because I was already floating away.
I wanted to feel him everywhere, and I searched him in the shadows of my room, palms riding over his shoulders, fingertips exploring his chest, his stomach, his hips. I dragged them back up his thick throat so I could explore the lines of his rugged, handsome face.
Tracing.
Touching.
Memorizing.
The way I’d wanted to do from the first time I’d seen him. The way I’d felt the impact of his presence like a thunderclap.
Like an awakening.
I should have known something so powerful could only mean death.
Cody groaned, and his hands slid down my sides, taking greedy handfuls as he went. “Love these fuckin’ curves. Got me fucked, Hailey.”
He spread them out over my bottom and pulled me hard against his rigid length.
Need left me on a pant, and I clung to him tighter.
“You feel that?” The possessive sound was close to a growl. “What you do to me? Do you get how fucking hard I am for you? How badly I want you? I don’t think there’s been a time in my life when I’ve wanted anything as badly as this. You’re the kind of temptation that makes a man do stupid things. Kind of temptation that drives him right up to the edge.”