Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
I needed to replace my past with the present, and I didn’t want quaint missionary in the dark. I didn’t want someone to whisper sweet nothings and touch me with velvet gloves.
I wanted bruises to replace old bruises.
I wanted real and messy and hard and fast and connection.
And that hurt because as much as I crushed on Zander, I couldn’t see him delivering the type of explosive, obsessive, animalistic chaos that I needed. And I didn’t think I could move on until I’d been thrown around in pleasure instead of pain. I didn’t know how to fully heal until another man made me feel as weak and as vulnerable as Milton had that night, only to deliver mind-splintering orgasms instead of life-stealing horror.
Did that make me messed up?
Would it make sense to anyone but me?
I didn’t know, and I was sick of not knowing, but I needed to know. I wanted to be taken, and ruled, and protected, and pleasured, and the fact that X had woken all these dark colliding, chaotic needs inside me pissed me the hell off. He might be man enough to make me come, but he wasn’t man enough to make me heal, and that was fine.
It’s fine.
It’s not his job.
I don’t need him.
I’m done.
Me: You know you could’ve just asked what I wanted instead of assuming for me. If you had, you would’ve known I wanted everything you just said. But it’s too late now. You left, and I’m busy. You have twenty-four hours to remove those cameras or else.
He responded within a few seconds.
X: Or else what?
Fury made me grin like a madwoman. I didn’t know how he did it, but good God, he turned me on. Just a few messages, and I was as wet as I had been on my couch when he’d kissed me.
Me: Or else I’ll take the gift you gave me and masturbate in my back garden. I’ll show you just what you’re missing all while I prove that I don’t need you.
“There.” I grinned at Peng. “That’ll teach him.” Swiping away my ponytail, I marched toward the back door. “If he didn’t see how I responded to him or how much I wanted him, then he’s as blind as a freaking bat and good riddance.”
Stomping to the ladder, I shoved the bin liners into my waistband, then wrapped one hand around a rung.
My phone buzzed.
X: If you climb up that ladder, I’m going to snap.
My heart added feathers to its burning comet, turning into a flying fireball.
Me: I can do whatever the hell I want.
X: Like hell you can. I didn’t put this much time and effort into keeping you alive only for you to kill yourself.
Me: Stop watching me. Stop messaging me. Leave me the hell alone.
X: Last chance, Lori. Hire someone else to clean your gutters. It’s not safe to do it on your own.
The fact that he cared so much about my well-being. The fact that a text about something as mundane as house maintenance could somehow become foreplay ought to have warned me not to push any further.
But…screw it.
It was my turn to snap.
My turn to be ridiculous and wild and stupid.
Me: The only way I’m not going up this ladder is if you make me.
And then I tossed my phone onto the chair and scurried up to the roof.
* 44 *
Zander
Threats Have Consequences
MY EYES STUNG FROM SHOVING BROWN contacts in. My hair still reeked of black hair dye. And I’d dressed so damn fast, I honestly didn’t know how I wasn’t wearing two different shoes.
Bolting out of the conservatory, I breathed hard behind my mask and slipped through the fence palings. Racing over her lawn, I caught sight of her as I cut around the side. She balanced precariously with one arm wrapped around the ladder and an open bin liner in the other. Her rubber gloves were already covered in decaying muck from reaching into the gutters.
“Lori! Get your ass down here, right the fuck now!”
Peng meowed and charged from inside, almost making me trip. Leaping over him, I skidded to a stop at the bottom of the ladder just as one of the old wooden rungs cracked and splintered.
My heart seized.
Sailor let out the quietest, “Oh.”
And then she tumbled, mud and weeds flying, bin liner fluttering, and her highly breakable body tipping backward.
I didn’t think. I just acted.
Spreading my arms, I judged her trajectory and braced myself.
She landed as a dead weight, sprawling like a bride in my embrace.
“Oof.” Staggering backward, I struggled to keep my balance so we both didn’t plummet into the flowers. My shoulders screeched. My arms trembled. I fought to find her center of gravity.
Her panicked eyes met mine as I finally stabilised and clutched her close.
For a moment, she didn’t move. She panted hard, shock switching to realisation of how close she came to breaking her back or worse.