Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 89032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
My ghost.
He’s my ghost.
A thousand thoughts rush through my head. How is this possible? Why is this happening? I don’t understand it, but Cormac’s got to be him. There’s no doubt in my mind.
Horror fills me. I feel like I’m falling. His grip tightens, and I breathe him in more, and that only freaks me out.
This man has been stalking me for years.
He’s been breaking into my apartment and taking things.
And now I’m marrying his brother.
I don’t understand why. It makes absolutely no sense. I’ve never met Cormac before. We don’t even live in the same city.
His lips are close to mine as I tilt my head back to look into his eyes. Beautiful lips. Red and full. I wonder what they would taste like, if they’d bleed. If he’d mind if I bit him hard. If he’d bite me back, fist my hair, pull it roughly, make me gasp and scream. I want him to kiss me. Brutalize me. Destroy me.
My ghost.
My fucking ghost!
“Are you okay?” he asks, still clutching me much too hard.
“I think so. I’m just, uh—” I back away. I physically push against his ripped chest to make space. “I should leave you alone.”
He’s looking at me with a hungry stare again, but now it has a whole new level.
Seven years. Seven long years my ghost has been haunting me.
Now he’s standing in the flesh. Beautiful, enormous, physically imposing, and terrifying.
My ghost. My future brother-in-law.
Panic overwhelms me. I stagger backwards, head spinning. Cormac is beautiful, he’s terrifying, he’s a murderer and a monster, horrible even for my family’s already obscenely low standards—
And he’s mine.
“Stay safe,” he says softly, almost a pained whisper.
I turn around to run the hell away like a scared little girl, not even able to maintain a single shred of dignity.
Chapter 9
Cormac
Hazy cigarette smoke drifts through the air. An old bartender shoves another whiskey in front of me, but the liquor doesn’t seem to be doing much. I leave him a fat tip to keep them coming, though.
The place is empty. The floor is sticky with beer and puke. Nobody knows me here, and nobody would bother me if they did.
Not with the way I’m looking right now.
Like I want to burn the fucking world.
It’s Friday night, and all I can think about is my feather. Her lips, her laughter, the naked fear in her eyes mixing with the dripping lust. How beautiful she felt for those brief seconds in my hands. The smell of her. The tension between us.
I fucked up bad going to Philadelphia.
A part of me had hoped that seeing her around Finn would somehow banish these sick thoughts. Maybe seeing my feather around a good man, knowing she’d be taken care of, knowing she’d have a decent life, I thought maybe that would somehow quench the sickening burn in my heart.
Instead, it only ruined me more.
Now the flames are twice as hot. The idea of her with another man kills me. I could rip my fucking hair out from the roots. I could slice my arms to ribbons with a rusty blade. And still none of that would hurt nearly as much as the thought of her in my brother’s arms.
Sleeping in his bed.
Carrying his fucking children.
I throw back the whiskey, grunting at the cheap burn, teeth gritted together in frustration. The bartender pours another. The old guy must know I’m dangerous because he skitters away like a bunny in front of a starving lion.
A part of me wants to kill. If I could find some lowlife, some fucking scumbag, maybe throttling him nice and slow would distract me from this vicious pain in my stomach. Maybe watching the lights dim from a man’s face might erase some of these terrible thoughts ruining me.
But it’s too late for that. Everything’s too fucking late.
I slam back another whiskey and shove cash across the bar. I stagger out into the night, not drunk, but not sober either. New York past midnight still buzzes with activity, even in this shitty neighborhood. I stomp down quiet streets, almost begging the world for a fucking mugger.
I need violence. I need something.
But the more I walk, the more I know there’s only one way I can fix what’s broken in me.
The worst part of all this is, before my feather, I felt nothing. Even during the last seven years when I treated her like a saint, emotions felt like weak flickering candles in vast empty caverns. There, somewhere, but buried deep down.
Only the kill gave me relief. Only worshipping at my saint’s altar brought me solace.
But now the candles are all burning goddamn fires. I’m feeling everything, and it’s all too much. The rage is there, the need is there, the jealousy and the obsession.
Through it all is my saint, my feather. My lightness and my goodness.