Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Or climbing back up it.
After Cass had saved my life.
“And I suppose she’s usually all naked,” Cass said from somewhere behind me. “I figured we could bypass that particular drama if I left your pants on.”
I closed my eyes. Fear and anger whirled inside of me along with a busload of confusion. I hadn’t expected Cass to be there. I hadn’t expected the blinding light and searing pain at the exact moment I should have been pulling the trigger.
I hadn’t expected a lot of things.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked as I put the gun back on the nightstand and scrubbed my face with my hands in the hopes of clearing some of the lingering fog from my brain.
“There’s an icepack behind you,” Cass responded.
Of course there was. That explained the cold I’d felt when I’d started to wake up.
“And to answer your question, you told me to bring you here.”
“You’re lying,” I automatically said, even though I knew he wasn’t. I had asked Cass to take me to his place so Sully wouldn’t find out what had happened. Part of me had been hoping I’d dreamed the part about asking Cass to take me to his place.
“Does that surprise you, JJ? I mean, that’s what I do, right?” Cass drawled. His voice changed to something softer, more intimate. “Or does it upset you to know that for once, I’m not lying?”
“Why were you there? In the alley?” I asked because I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. Cass lied. He did terrible things.
“You know why.”
“God, can’t you just answer a fucking question straight for once?”
“Why do you think I was there, JJ?” Cass snapped. His momentary lapse in controlling his tone strangely made me feel better. Like he was still a little bit human and not full-on monster.
“You were following me,” I said. My head was starting to hurt again, so I glanced over my shoulder to find the icepack. There was no avoiding catching a glimpse of Cass. He was just outside the bathroom door.
And he was shirtless.
Dear God.
In addition to the pounding head on my shoulders, there was another head that was throbbing now too. Thank fuck Cass had left my pants on. The last thing I needed was for him to realize what his proximity was doing to me.
I nearly laughed because I’d never wondered about the character of any of the men who’d fucked me at Tank’s and yet, here I was trying to tell my dick that it wasn’t allowed to want this man, this murderer, no matter how drop-dead gorgeous he was.
The icepack turned out to be a plastic baggie with some half-melted ice cubes in it. “How long have we been here for?” I asked as I put the not really an icepack against the scar on my head.
“A few hours,” Cass responded simply. “It’s six.”
“Fuck, Sully’s gonna be pissed,” I muttered.
“Not half as pissed as when he finds out what really happened in that alley.”
I froze at Cass’s words. “Nothing happened,” I managed to say. “My gun jammed and your weird obsession with me put you in the right place at the right time.”
I cursed myself as soon as the words were out.
Weird obsession? Why the hell was I opening that particular can of worms?
“Would that be the weird obsession that makes me a murderer or the weird obsession that had you pinning me against my car and jamming your tongue down my throat like a drunken anteater?”
His words stung.
And proved how fucked up in the head I was.
There I was sitting in the motel room of a guy who’d murdered three innocent people before trying to take my life, and I was upset about his criticism of my inexperienced kissing.
“What, no snappy comeback?” Cass asked.
I could feel his presence as he moved around the bed. I just had to keep a straight face and figure out the quickest way to get myself out of the room. If I called Sully and asked him to come and get me, he’d wonder what I was doing with Cass. Of course, he probably already knew if the cops had called about getting our statement. Boone might have also told him. None of it would explain what I was doing in a cheap motel room with Cass, though.
I was surprised when Cass went to the door and opened it before shutting it again. Did he actually look relieved at the fact that the door opened? What outcome had he been expecting?
I dropped my eyes again because the muscles rippling along his back were way too much of a distraction.
As Cass moved toward the window, I realized he was going to reach the little stack of clothes on the table he’d laid out for me before I was. While I could live with my pants the way they were, I needed a shirt, and I had no clue where mine was.