Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Frowning, he shook his head. “Come here,” he said, his voice gentling. “You’ll need help back. I’m gonna carry you, and don’t you dare try to protest.”
He knew me so well. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him no way.
But my ankle hurt, and I wanted to get dry and warm again. So I let him.
My heart swooped when he bent and lifted me.
I could hardly breathe when he pulled me to his chest, our faces just inches from each other.
“Relax, Starla,” he said in a soothing voice. “Let’s get you fixed up.”
I stare at the screens in front of us, brought back to the present. One boring thing after another flicks by, but something finally catches my attention.
“Hey.” I roll my chair closer to him. “I… let me see that again?”
“See what?”
“Can you rewind that?”
He obliges, and I take the mouse, slowing down the frames of the footage from the bar earlier that day. Timeo, Ricco, and Sergio sitting at a table. The bar mostly vacant. Then it looks like only seconds pass, but in the next frame, the sun through the windows has shifted.
“Do you see what I see?” I ask him. “There’s like a gap. One second, the sun is reflecting on the snow outside the window behind Ricco, the next it’s shifted way more than it would have in only seconds.”
Timeo’s eyes narrow. “Someone intentionally manipulated the footage.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Starla
“I feel like a detective,” I say, my heart beating faster. I hop off my chair and look around the room. “Was that pen there before? I do not remember seeing that pen.”
“Jesus,” Timeo mutters. “We just found evidence of video footage being tampered with. You think this is a laughing matter?”
I shake my head at him and give him my most dazzling smile. “Honey, one thing you have to understand. After you’ve been through what I have, everything is a laughing matter.” I pick up the ballpoint. “And seriously, about this pen.”
Timeo swivels his chair around, propping an ankle on his knee and leaning back so he can look me over more fully.
I swallow hard when his eyes smolder.
“You have been through a lot,” he says softly.
I lick my lips.
“Yeah.” A pathetic, useless response, but I only say it because our reality is starting to hit me pretty hard, and my voice doesn’t want to work right now.
We’re alone.
And we aren’t kids anymore.
Were we ever?
Timeo puts both feet on the floor with an air of finality. The space between us crackles as we stare each other down.
“This isn’t a laughing matter,” he says, but his eyes twinkle. I think he’s looking for a reason to go all stern on me.
I cock a brow and plant a hand on my hips. “Says who?”
His gaze is loud and clear: challenge accepted.
“Me, of course. Someone is out to hurt you,” he says, his voice low and husky. With both feet on the floor, his knees part. I drop the pen on the desk and let myself slowly, leisurely stare at the spread of his legs. The way his strong hands lay at rest on his knees.
I lick my lips and swallow.
I’m done waiting.
Done.
And with his next words I realize he’s done, too.
“Come here, Starla.” Timeo pats his knee.
Every step toward him makes my heart beat faster. At the back of my mind, I know that we’re not safe, that we probably shouldn’t let ourselves get distracted… As I draw nearer to him, my heart’s erratic tempo makes me nearly quake.
“Someone tampered with that video,” I whisper. “But no one’s here, Timeo. It’s just me and you. So whoever did it’s gone now.” I lick my dry lips. “We’re alone. In the club.” I let my gaze flick to the window as I take another step toward him. “Indefinitely.”
“Jesus,” he mutters, laser focused on my approach, his eyes burning straight through me. “You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?”
My knees hit his. My skin tingles with anticipation.
“Depends on what this is. Easy for you to stay away from me? Oh hell, no.” I slide one leg over his, then the other, straddling him. I wriggle my hips at his obvious erection.
He slaps my ass hard and fast, making me squeal. Molten fire licks at my core. “Naughty girl,” he says, tsking at me. “Of all the times and places—”
I lean in and press my mouth to his.
This time, he lets me.
I sigh into him, the weight of my body melting into his. With his strong fingers woven in my hair, he pulls. Pain radiates along my scalp in the most delicious ways. No one’s ever pulled my hair before.
I like.
I lick his tongue and he rewards me with another delicious pull of my hair before he cradles my head in his large, capable hands. I squirm deliriously, eliciting a groan from him. I’m instantly wet. A low thrum of insistent need pulses between my thighs, and my core aches to be filled with him.