Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
A heaviness flashes in his eyes, and he steps into me, his hands gripping my ass and effortlessly lifting me into his arms. He walks back to the shitty bed and sits down on the edge so that I’m straddled over his lap, my arms and the heavy chain dangling down his strong back. “I’m sorry, Mace,” he murmurs, those loving eyes lingering on mine and making me believe that I can trust him. “This is only a precaution, just until I know that you’re not going to do something stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know too much,” he tells me. “What I’ve been doing . . . Usually the women I play with end up in shallow graves across the country, and I don’t need to concern myself with the possibility that they will report me to the authorities, but you’re different, Kyah. I can’t bring myself to end your life, which means that you currently hold a power over me that I’ve never allowed before, and I don’t know what to do with that.” He pauses, taking a breath as his gaze lingers on mine. “I’ve never allowed a woman close enough to know my name, know my face, and I sure as fuck haven’t allowed her to mark my body with a design that could be used to identify me. I play it carefully, always covering my tracks, but with you, I’ve been a mess. I can’t keep away from you.”
My fingers twine into the back of his hair, unable to keep from touching him despite the terrifying reality of our conversation. “You’re never going to let me go, are you?”
Alex presses his lips into a tight line. “That’s up to you, Kyah,” he says. “Like I said, I don’t get off on hurting you. That’s not what I want, but if I can’t trust you to protect me the way I’ve protected you, then no, I won’t be allowing you to leave.”
Tears well in my eyes, and before I get a chance to blink them away, they roll down my cheeks. Alex trembles at the sight, his heart on his sleeve. “Baby, don’t cry. I can’t handle your tears.”
“I just . . . I don’t know what to think or say. I want to be terrified of you, but for some reason, I just can’t, and it has me questioning everything,” I tell him, lifting my shoulder to wipe the tear off my jaw. “Was any of it real?”
“Of course, it was,” he says. His brows furrow, almost looking horrified at the idea that I would think to question it. “Every fucking day, I wake up and think of you, even after we’ve been together, and I’ve walked you back to your apartment. I wonder what you’re thinking. What you’re doing. If you’re happy or sad. I’m fucking crazy about you, Mace. Just because I take that crazy to a whole new level, doesn’t mean that any of it was any less real.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat and hold his gaze, my heart racing a million miles an hour. “Why am I so different from the other women you’ve killed?” I ask.
“You want an honest answer?”
I nod, unsure if I really want to know.
“With them, it was about getting off. I’d fuck them, but it was always missing that adrenaline rush that comes when you take somebody’s life. Watching the light fade from someone’s eyes has always gotten me off in a way nothing else could.”
“You don’t think you’d feel that rush with me?” I ask, wondering why I want to know this so badly.
“Fuck, Kyah. The opposite,” he admits, giving me the cold hard facts. “Ending your life would be the biggest rush I’ve ever felt, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t bear the thought of what would come next.”
“And what’s that?”
“Having to grieve you,” he says bluntly. “I don’t want to miss you, Kyah. I don’t want to wake up every day and not have you living across the hall from me. I don’t want to be sneaking into some other woman’s room. Not now that I know how fucking good it is with you.”
I let out a heavy breath, my cheeks blowing out in the process as I try to process everything he’s saying. “Shit, Alex. You’re making it really fucking hard to hate you right now.”
“I know, baby.”
The tears continue down my face, and he holds me tight, pulling me into his chest so that I can rest my head on his big shoulder, his hands roaming up and down my back, gently soothing me. “I thought I was falling in love with you,” I tell him, my heart breaking at the thought of having to end things with him.
“You still are,” he tells me, his voice like velvet flowing across my skin. “I’m still the same guy you met in the hallway. There’s just a deeper complexity to me that you’re still discovering. I have a dark past and indulge in a lifestyle that isn’t socially acceptable, but that doesn’t change a damn thing between us.”