Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
He was looking through me.
I don’t know why, but I found myself wanting to stay lost in his eyes, enraptured in the blaze that was searing into my skin. As much as I was terrified by what might happen, I couldn’t look away; I was trapped by his catastrophic hate.
He was luring me in with his dominating stare, pulling every emotion from my body like it belonged to him as if we were the only two people in the world. Every passing second between us was another thought, another emotion, another memory for both of us. We were physically there with one another; our minds were somewhere else entirely.
Making me question what or who he was truly seeing in front of him.
Were we back in his office?
Had we ever left that room?
“Tristian—”
“Come here,” he ordered in a stern tone. Overpoweringly struggling with whatever was taking his whole world captive in his mind.
I wanted to move, to walk away, and never look back, but I couldn’t get my feet to step in any direction. My heart screamed for me to go to him, although my body declared war, determined to ultimately win the internal battle erupting inside of us and all around us. Awakening every last demon that had laid dormant for so many years.
Him.
Me.
Romeo.
I clenched.
Locking up.
Staying firmly rooted to the place I stood.
I surrendered to my hesitation for however long I could, seeking refuge within myself. Still, I stayed put. Willingly held hostage in his haunted composure.
In his tormented gaze.
In his seedy demeanor.
And he knew it too.
He was getting off on it.
The power.
Over me.
He cocked his head to the side, reading me like the back of his hand. “You scared of me, Red?”
I stood taller, angling my chin up. Challenging him. A hint of amusement passed through his eyes, but he blinked it away, and it was gone. Making me think I’d possibly imagined it, needing to cling onto some sort of connection with him.
My heart was lying out in front of us as I started to walk toward him. Each step precise and calculated, each stride more unsettling than the last. I felt like I was making my way over to a stranger, unable to run away.
Wanting.
Needing.
Waiting.
Holding my breath with every last fiber in my being. I couldn’t breathe the entire fifteen steps it took to get to him.
I knew because I counted them.
It was the only way to keep myself from passing out over the sensations I couldn’t control for the life of me.
Cautiously, he eyed me, taking in every last curve of my body and inch of my skin. Almost as if he was trying to memorize me, engrain me into his heart and soul.
Where was I before this?
There wasn’t one nook of my figure he hadn’t taken in. Anxiously, I waited for his eyes to stop and look deep into my gaze. All it would take was for him to sincerely look at me for one second, to see how I felt inside. To put an end to this.
The way he was treating me.
Talking to me.
Looking at me.
Making me feel abandoned and frightened.
Triggering shivers to course down my spine and back up again. He must have noticed the shift in my demeanor because his eyes finally connected with mine.
Right when I was standing in front of him, he slipped his fingers through the knot of my robe, untying it. Ever so slowly opening the silk, similar to unwrapping a present.
Was I his gift?
Or his nightmare?
My eyes never wavered from Tristian’s as he began skimming his fingers along my collarbones to the sides of my breasts and over to my beating heart. He lingered there for a moment, continuing to slide them down the center of my ribcage until placing his entire hand over my pussy.
I sucked in a breath.
“Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”
Before I could respond, he leaned forward, close to my lips. Wrapping his arms around my waist. He held onto me for dear life, so tight, so hard, so strong.
So fucking unnerving.
My heart pounded harder against my chest.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
All the blood bled from my body, and my stomach dropped to the ground when I felt cool metal against my chest.
Not just my chest.
Over my heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” —Dark Knight
Eden
“Oh my God, Tristian. What are you doing?” I jerked back. “Where did you even get that? Why do you have a gun, and why do you have it pointed at me?”
“What, Red? You scared now?”
“What are you saying? What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m just trying to see if I could make you love me.”
His whiskey breath assaulted my senses. I knew it. He had been drinking before he got home. “You’ve been drinking.”
“You drive me to drink.”