Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Could use some action,” Absinthe said.
“Me too,” Scarlet agreed.
Absinthe laughed. “Every now and then I worry what would happen if we didn’t have these little side battles to allow you to let off steam, woman.”
“I suppose we shouldn’t find out,” Scarlet said with an exaggerated mock sigh.
The tension in the room was gone just like that, dispelled by the Torpedo Ink women. Blythe and Scarlet hadn’t been down in the basement with them, torn into pieces. They hadn’t been woven into one fucked-up mess in order to survive, but they were part of their soul now. Master wanted Ambrielle to be in that revered few. For him, she would be. The others wouldn’t accept her. Like him, she would always be held apart, just a little space between her and them because they understood she’d fucked up, and when she got right, she would take one look at the mess she married and she’d run as fast as she could.
“You’re doing it again,” Ambrielle whispered as he wrapped her in her jacket.
“What am I doing?” He zipped the jacket up, ignoring the frog in his throat.
She reached up to frame his face with her hands. Whenever she did that, his heart clenched hard in his chest and his cock went to full alert. He couldn’t help looking into her eyes, which was always a mistake. They’d gone violet on him, soft and loving, melting that stone in him that was his only protection against the devastation she was going to wreak when she left.
“Looking so sad you make me want to cry.”
“It’s a trick of the light, Ambrielle.”
“You promised we wouldn’t lie to one another,” she whispered, her eyes searching his, seeing too much.
“Get in the truck. Let’s just go home. I want to be alone with you.” He didn’t bother to try to keep the weariness out of his voice.
She slipped her hand into his and turned toward the door, waving toward Seychelle as they went to the parking lot, Ink and Keys walking on either side of them. Ink opened the passenger-side door for Ambrie and closed it after her.
“I’ll catch a ride home with Keys. Meet you in a few days at the Stoddard home after I get the intel from Code.”
“Sounds good to me,” Master agreed. “Be safe.” He was grateful he wasn’t on dead-body detail. There were a lot of them to get rid of.
The ride home was quiet. Ambrielle tipped her head back against the seat, content to listen to the music filling the cab. She seemed to accept that he needed the silence after being around so many people. She didn’t make him feel guilty that he wasn’t entertaining her or answering a thousand questions. She just listened to the music and tapped out a rhythm on her thigh. Master appreciated her even more for giving him space.
He liked to take different roads to his home. His property, a one-hundred-acre parcel, was surrounded by thousands of acres of protected private ground and state forest land. His property was completely surrounded with ten-foot-high fencing, mainly to keep humans out, not animals. He asked that those he rented the cabins to patrol the fence and maintain it—which they did.
He took a longer way in, a dirt road leading through a mixture of tall redwoods, evergreens and hardwoods. There were a few switchbacks, but there was beauty unrivaled on this particular drive. Two gorgeous waterfalls, one high and rolling over a series of rocks to fall into a large stream below, and the other, much smaller but no less beautiful, ran over boulders and fell along a short bluff before spilling into a narrower part of the same stream. Ferns lined the silvery water, and great redwoods rose up in groves as sentries. Ambrie sat up straighter and stared out the window, at one point even rolling it down as they drove slowly past.
They came up to the back side of his house, passed the sprawling, cavernous shop and garage with three bays, the shed filled with wood and the pump house. He drove straight to the back entrance and parked. The back deck was wide and covered. The hot tub was there and behind it the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows that gave him the illusion of being outdoors, so he was able to stand being inside.
The large bathtub sitting on the gray tiles jutting out into his bedroom could be seen through the thick glass. Behind the glass door panels making up one side of the room facing the deck was the master bedroom. He could be in his bed and look out at the forest and know he could escape through any of those three doors in a matter of seconds.
“You go ahead, Master,” Ambrielle said. “The clouds have blown over, and for once the stars have come out. I think I’ll sit out here for a little while in the hot tub and just stare at them.” She didn’t wait for permission. She wasn’t the kind of woman who thought she needed permission from a man. She unzipped and shrugged out of her coat and went to the hot tub to unbuckle the straps securing the top.