Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Nodding, I swallow thickly, pushing down the bitter lump in my throat so I don’t start blubbering all over again.
“You made the right choice.”
“Damn right,” he says with a grin, stomping the gas when the light turns green. “I’ll take the woman who’s in love with a man who cares for her any day over a woman who only knows how to care about herself. I hope she’ll take my offer and check herself in while she’s there. Maybe one day, she’ll come to her senses.”
I nod vacantly.
It’s going to be a long road for us, let alone for Evangeline.
But for the first time in ages, there’s the faintest hope sparking.
Now I know there’s still more than one man alive who loves me—and I’m sure he’ll do everything in his power to hold me together until that other man comes home.
22
Merlot Moods (Chris)
Delia!
I’m running toward her on the warmest beach painted in pure sunshine, every last bit of me in flames.
I won’t behave.
I’m going to tumble her into the sand the instant she’s in my arms. It’s been too long.
The need to grab her, savor her, taste her, fuck her, feel her throbs in my blood.
Kissing this woman isn’t damn near enough.
I want to devour her with my all, the gravity of my soul, everything I can muster to keep myself sane when the fire in my blood crescendos.
Our lips are so close I’m aching to the bone.
Those honey-brown eyes flash with a smile that could put every Hollywood bombshell to shame.
“Goddammit, woman. You are fire,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to hers.
I’m fisting her hair now, tipping her head back for my mouth as she opens her lips, already moaning and so ready for me to claim what I’ve been missing for—
“Answer me, you lying puta.”
I breathe, inhaling the stink of high-end tequila and blistering cologne.
Then my ribs explode.
Eladio stomps my chest so hard I almost slip back into the blackness.
The velvety curtain, where I’m far, far away from this fucking dungeon, still with her.
Except it isn’t real.
It isn’t the bone-crushing pain that makes me cringe when I open my eyes.
It’s looking at Lucifer incarnate, and after I’ve led his men around chasing their tails for days, he is fucking pissed.
“I won’t hesitate to kill you. Do you understand?” he whispers darkly, baring his teeth as he slides an icy blade over my cheek.
“Yeah. You told me a hundred times. You—” I cut off, coughing, tasting something wet and metallic. Fuck. “You’d have done it by now if you had her.”
Even in the layers of shadows that make up my vision, his face glows hell-red.
“You think that makes me weak? You and your games, you—” His boot swings down again, slamming the cracked cement space next to my head. “She wasn’t home. Nowhere to be found. Your men are smart. They took the little girl before we could—”
“Thought so. You need me, then,” I say, hiding how badly I want to laugh with relief, even if it shatters my body more.
Not that I’m sure he’d recognize happiness on my broken mess of a face anymore.
“I need you to stop fucking lying,” he growls, shoving his face to mine, that cold knife against my throat. “Last chance. Give me everything—your bosses, the Feds’ names, the size of your teams, the plans—or I start carving.”
He pushes that knife down, grazing my skin, waiting for me to shudder or curse him or piss my pants.
As always, I don’t move.
I don’t flinch.
I damn sure don’t breathe a word.
Only, this time he’s onto my diversions. He’ll actually start doing permanent damage soon, but I can take that because he’ll just be hurting me.
Not Sex again.
Not Gering or Batista or the other guys who are caged up and suffering in a dusty, dark room just like this one.
Not their families. I’m guessing they used resources they couldn’t afford scouring half the Bay for Sexton’s granddaughter thanks to my disinfo. Landon would’ve had the whole family pulled and put under permanent protection the second they found out Sex was captured.
“Might want to get your best minion fuckboys on the case,” I say, fighting back another cough. “You’ve got a fucking lot of my blood staining your expensive shirts this week. That shit can’t come out easy.”
Snarling, he tears himself away, hurling the knife against the wall and draining the last of his tequila glass.
His silver-toed boots glint in the dimness, and I can make out their intricate designs again.
Those coiled serpents devouring their tails.
Ouroboros.
The eternal cycle, life and death and infinity, and it should snap what’s left of my mind.
It doesn’t.
Not while I’m somewhere else.
Not while I’m kissing the woman I’ve waited twenty-four damn years for.
She, who makes me a creature of pure bleeding fire rather than flesh.
She, who holds the only future that’ll ever matter in those caramel eyes.