Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
There was something unexpectedly sweet at that moment, something that had some of my defenses falling away as my hands sifted up into his hair, massaging his scalp the way I liked so much, but hadn’t felt in ages.
The sort of rumbling sound that moved through his chest, vibrating into me, let me know that Slash was a fan too.
His reaction was the only explanation for the way I turned my head, the way I sought out his lips once again.
We didn’t kiss after.
Kissing was a foreplay thing only.
But Slash didn’t even hesitate as my lips claimed his. They let me take the lead. And, for once, the kiss wasn’t hard, hungry, almost bruising with its intensity.
It was soft, sweet, intimate.
A little whimper moved through me as we deepened it ever so slightly, Slash’s lips slanting over mine as his hand moved from my throat to the side of my face, cradling my jaw as his tongue slipped inside to toy with mine.
A warm sensation spread across my chest, then seemed to envelop me completely, making me feel almost a little drunk as our lips continued to explore.
It seemed like it went on forever, and as the moments stretched on, the sensations deepened. Not desire, exactly. Something different. Something deeper.
It wasn’t until I felt this strange almost tugging sensation in my chest, suspiciously close to my heart, that I knew what was happening.
Feelings.
Feelings were what was happening.
And they couldn’t happen.
Shit was messy enough already.
I didn’t need to complicate things even more than that.
My lips ripped from him as my legs dropped from his hips. My arms were last to untangle from him. I tried to tell myself it was because I needed him to hold me up while I got to my feet, but some part of me knew it was just because I didn’t want to let go.
Which was exactly why I needed to.
“Nyx…” Slash said, and there was something soft, something longing in his voice that had my heart constricting in my chest as I tried to get into my other shoe without putting my foot on the filthy ground. “Nyx,” he tried again as I shimmied my skirt and top back into place. “Damnit, look at me,” he hissed, reaching for my face, forcing it up to his. Then I watched as he saw something on my face that had him exhaling hard, his shoulders slumping a bit afterward. “There they are again,” he murmured, seemingly to himself.
“There what is?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, moving a step back, then another, almost like he wanted to get away from me. “You know what,” he said, still retreating, but facing me. “When you figure out that you can fucking trust me with whatever the fuck is going on with you, you know where to find me. Until then, don’t fucking text me. I’m done being the guy you fuck so you don’t have to feel anything.”
With that, he turned and walked out of the alley.
Every part of me wanted to call out to him, wanted to run up to him.
But before I could convince myself to do it, he was gone, and it felt like a door had slammed between us.
“Oh, what the fuck?” I hissed at myself as I felt tears flood my eyes, then start to slide down my cheeks. “What the fuck?” I repeated, rubbing under my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Okay. Alright. Get it together,” I pep-talked myself, trying to brush it away, all the while knowing that no matter how much I tamped it down, it was going to tunnel back to the surface eventually.
But that was a problem for another day.
I had enough of them to deal with.
I was pretty sure it would have all come rushing back after my shift when I was tired and vulnerable.
But, see, when I got home, my door was open.
And as I moved inside, I realized that the intruder hadn’t exactly left yet…
CHAPTER SEVEN
Slash
“You wanna talk about it?” Detroit asked the following morning when I’d caught him at the ass crack of dawn, asking to tag along to the gym with him, then proceeded to push myself so hard I was close to puking.
I’d been pounding into a punching bag for so long that my body was slick with sweat and my arms had no strength left in them, falling numbly to my sides, completely useless once he’d interrupted me.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted, actually struggling to get my weak-ass hands to open my bottle of water to take a greedy sip. “I’m working out.”
“Yeah, but there’s working out and then there’s working shit out,” Detroit said, brows lifting as he watched me drop down onto a weight bench, fucking exhausted.
Exhausted was good.
Exhausted was what I’d been searching for all night, but had failed, leaving me awake and pacing and overthinking shit for hours and hours and fucking hours.