Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
My best friend was my mother.
And I couldn’t tell her this.
So I was telling Elden. Right after he gave me the best kiss anyone ever had and likely making sure he wasn’t ever going to kiss me again.
“Knowing I sought after a man who beat me, without any kind of knowledge of what my mother went through, is next level fucked-up,” I finished with a sigh.
There was no way for me to forget Elden’s presence, but I’d gotten so tangled up in my narrative that I hadn’t realized what I was saying. The impact it might have. I had forgotten the breed of men who wore the Sons of Templar cuts.
Ultra-hot. Ultra-alpha. Badass and violent to the core. Intense as all hell. Elden even more so because he’d just kissed the shit out of me.
There was a stillness, a quiet, so charged, so dangerous that I forgot to breathe. I was sucked up into his orbit.
“What did you just say?” he murmured, his voice a blade cutting through the night.
Goosebumps raised on my arms with the knowledge of a danger, a deadliness emanating from him.
I couldn’t speak. Not when confronted with the raw violence that was seeping from him.
He stepped forward, and I scuttled back, not realizing I was standing on a roof without railings. Elden’s hand darted out to circle my upper arm, yanking me back in just as my left heel tried to step on empty air.
The result of this was our bodies landing flush together, Elden’s hand settling on my hip, strong and purposeful. To keep me from plummeting to the ground and perhaps from trying to escape him.
He smelled of leather and musk. And the faint aroma of cigarettes, which should’ve turned me off but only added more layers. Spicy aftershave that sank into my pores. He smelled like a fucking man.
“Violet.” My name was a warning. His grip tightened, and he yanked me closer.
My name was so sweet from his mouth.
“You made me taste you, and then told you me that,” he uttered, eyes wild.
I blinked rapidly at his tone, the pure violence in it. Considering what I’d just told him, considering everything happening with men in my life, I should’ve been afraid. Terrified. The man was exuding violence.
But I wasn’t. I was comforted. Though I didn’t have evidence to back up the thought, something told me he was a violent man. A deadly man. A man who would burn the earth to cinders if he had the occasion to. That he wasn’t afraid to inflict hurt.
But not on me. No. Never me.
“He’s going to regret ever thinking he was worthy of you,” he uttered. “He’s going to regret being fucking born.”
And on that, he purposefully pulled me far away from the roof’s edge with one hand then pulled his phone from his cut with the other. He stared down at his phone as he pressed the screen then held it up to his ear.
“Colby,” he grunted. “Need you on the roof now. Violet’s here, needs to be taken down safely and put to bed without you layin’ an untoward hand on her. Unless you want me to feed you your fingers one by one.”
I blinked at him as he didn’t wait for a response, putting the phone back in his cut.
Again, he pulled me, sitting me down on the chair I had previously been ruminating in.
“Stay there,” he commanded. His voice was rough, but then he brushed the hair from my face with a gentleness that didn’t seem possible coming from a man overcome with such primal fury.
“No one will ever hurt you again, Violet,” he murmured, laying a kiss on my forehead before walking off.
Walking the fuck off.
I didn’t even get the chance to follow him before Colby ascended the ladder, strutting over to snatch the bottle from my hands with a raised brow.
“Now, I’m not your babysitter, but if you’re going to mix weed, whisky and the pills they gave you at the clinic, at least do it in a place where you can’t stumble off the side of a building,” he requested dryly, his brows pinched in concern.
It took me a second to figure out the root of his concern, what with the kiss, the beans I’d spilled and the intense proclamation from a man I was low-key obsessed with.
I looked from Colby to the edge of the roof, frowning. “What? You seriously thought I was going to jump?”
His attractive face relaxed, a gentle expression on it. “I mean, you’re a strong ass bitch, but you’ve also been through a lot the past few weeks. And though regularly, Jack and weed make great dates, not so much when they’re the only ones at the party. It can make things seem dark and inescapable.”
I regarded him and his tone. It seemed knowing. Sad.