Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
The sound of the music clipped off from where it played inside, and his eyes rounded with fear when I came to stand over him.
Fury a storm around me. Hatred so thick I could hardly breathe.
Sometimes I wondered what they saw in me when I came for them. In that moment before they met their end. Because their expressions so often looked just like this.
This dirtbag was lucky I didn’t know his past. Lucky I wasn’t privy to all the seedy shit he had undoubtedly gotten up to. Lucky I wasn’t wise to whatever played out in his mind.
Otherwise, he would not be receiving this pass.
I crouched in front of him and angled in close to his face, keeping my voice controlled. Maybe even friendly. “I’m letting you off easy because I’m a pretty decent guy like that. But if I ever catch you with those hands touching something that doesn’t want to be touched again, you’re going to end up without them. Do you understand?”
He made a garbled sound, saliva dripping out the side of his mouth.
“Good.” I patted his cheek, a little harder than necessary. “Now get the fuck off my property and take your friends with you before I change my mind.”
I pushed to standing and turned my back on the pile of scum, fighting the urge to whip back around and teach him the lesson he’d earned.
Hands tingling with wrath.
Though I could feel something stronger luring me in a different direction.
This sensation rippling from inside.
I strode back through the door and into my bar where all eyes were on me. Everyone was frozen in their exact same positions as when I’d dragged the monster out fifteen seconds ago.
Disgust billowed off Theo where he held the three pricks at bay, my oldest friend looking at me in question, silently asking for the go to tear them apart.
Not tonight.
Had something far more important that needed tending to.
“Get them the fuck out of here,” I growled, not slowing as I shifted back toward the solitary table that sat in the front corner.
My heart was a fucking battering ram in my chest as I edged that way, every muscle in my body locked as I took her in where she was on the floor.
Sitting up but curled into a ball.
Head still downturned with those long, blonde curls draped around her. Arms wrapped around her knees as she shook.
Slowly, I started to kneel, but apparently not slowly enough because she lashed out, two hands smacking into my chest to push me back.
A warrior, this one.
Could feel it radiating around her.
The fight mixed up with the pain.
“Whoa, I’m not going to hurt you.” I kept my voice quieted. “It’s okay. That prick is gone.”
A shiver rolled through her.
“You’re safe.”
She seemed to war, turning in on herself, before she warily lifted her head so I could see her face.
Fuck. Me.
A thunderbolt struck through me just looking at her.
Giant eyes the color of toffee stared back, dappled with these flecks of fiery orange.
Woman with a face that could drop a man straight to his knees.
All sharp angles and high cheeks and the poutiest lips I’d ever seen.
But it was the agony swimming in her gaze that I wasn’t sure had a whole lot to do with what had just gone down that had me whispering, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
I had no clue why the fuck I was claiming it.
No clue what possessed me to carefully move to her side and scoop her slight body up into my arms.
Only thing I was sure of?
I couldn’t stop myself.
TWO
EMERY
What the hell did I think I was doing? Allowing this man—this complete freaking stranger—to pick me up off the floor, that was what.
Arms strong and sure where he had them under my legs and back.
Maybe I’d had too much to drink. Or maybe it was that my emotions were so frayed and raw that it’d left me numb in some hypersensitive way.
It was like I could feel too much and too little, both empty and like I was going to burst apart from the pressure, and I was desperate for anything to fill the void.
Well, anything except for that disgusting creep who’d come sauntering up to me like I’d actually play into his stupid pickup line. Slurring his words as he tried to get into my line of sight.
Panic had lit the second he got into my vicinity.
That instinct kicking in.
Fight.
Except I had so little fight left in me. So little fight after everything I’d been living for had been stolen away. The hole gaping and throbbing. And now, the last tattered piece was getting ready to be ripped away.
So, there I was, in this crappy dive bar where I thought I’d be isolated enough to drown in my sorrows, only instead, I had wound up a limp mess in the arms of a stranger with my arms around his neck and my face buried under his chin.