Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I’m also glad that I go ahead and smack his face.
And then it’s like I got the taste for it, and I can’t stop so I keep going. I keep hitting him. Slapping his face, hitting his chest. I even knee him in his thighs; I was going for his stupid junk, but I miss it. I would’ve tried again, but I think he’s had enough so he takes both my arms and pins them to the wall by my head. He also leans into me with his hard body, trapping my legs with his, his belt buckle digging into my upper belly.
Then, with his fingers squeezing around my wrist, he rasps, “You get that out of your system?”
I twist between him and the wall, trying to dislodge his grip. “Let me go.”
“Not until you calm down,” he says with authority.
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“I will if it looks like you’re on the verge of hurtin’ yourself.”
“I’m trying to hurt you, asshole.”
“Yeah, don’t think that’s happenin’.”
“You’re such a…” I breathe in deep before proceeding with, “You’re a liar.”
A light frown emerges between his eyebrows as if he’s confused. “Thought we covered that too.”
“Your shooter friend,” I bite out, getting up in his face, “the one you told me was waiting to shoot my best friend’s brother but was really not? Now as it turns out, he isn’t a shooter at all.” At my words, his frown clears off and he breathes out. “Apparently, he doesn’t like guns all that much.” I keep going: “He won’t even shoot animals.”
He breathes out again, this time muttering as if to himself, “Yeah, forgot about that.”
At his acknowledgment, I jerk in his hold again, trying to get free and smack him across the face some more, because I’m not done yet. But he overpowers me, and all I can do is glare and snarl, “Of course you forgot about that. You’ve told so many lies, it’s a wonder you can keep them all straight.”
His jaw—which I can’t help noticing is even more stubbled now and has crossed the line over to a light beard—clenches as he pushes out a breath. “So is that why you were followin’ me? Because you found out Rad won’t touch guns?”
“Yes,” I snap. Then a second later, “No.”
He watches me for a few beats, his frown back and thicker than before. “Why don’t you figure it the fuck out first and then launch yourself at me?”
He loosens his hold on me then. Big mistake. Huge. Because the moment his fingers leave my wrist, I launch myself at him again. I smack and slap and punch and kick and even bite. I’m not sure what part of his body I managed to get my teeth into, but it felt like the side of his neck; now I’m subdued again.
This time with brute force. That he still doesn’t physically hurt me, even with the way he has his fingers so tightly wrapped around my wrist, is something I don’t want to put a lot of thought into. Not right now when I’m so angry at him.
His chest rumbles with his words: “What the fuck’s your problem?”
“You,” I snap, fisting my fingers in his grip. “You are my problem. Everything wrong in my life is because of you.”
His nostrils flare and his chest almost shudders with his large breath. “So maybe for once, you should act smart and stay away from me instead of fucking tailin’ me the moment I leave your fuckin’ sight.”
God. I hate him. So much.
My own breaths are all large and choppy, too, as I repeat, “Let. Me. Go.”
“Calm down first.”
His answer only manages to enrage me. “If you start talking to me like you do to your horses, I swear to God, I’m going to lose it.”
His jaw pulses. “More than you already have?”
“You—”
“And you already know what I like to do to calm you down, so unless you want me to get on my knees and spread your thighs so my mouth gets to work between them while the whole town is just across from the barn, you’ll do as I say and calm the fuck down, yeah?”
Maybe I can’t stop my thighs from clenching at his threat and my belly from feeling achy. But I sure as hell am going to ignore it. Instead, I glare at him through the darkness. And even though I’m so mad at him, I study his features.
It’s been almost two days since we’ve been this close, and now that I have him here, I try to find signs of his earlier discomfort. Or some clue about what he did yesterday and all day today. Because after he told us about his plan, he disappeared. Rad gave Peyton some papers to sign, something to do with the power of attorney and the land. And Peyton promised to pick up her brother’s weekly call tomorrow so as to not arouse suspicion about what the Graysons are planning until they’re ready to reveal it.