Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
I get out of the car. It’s cold, and I can see my breath in front of me, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll be very cold soon enough. I walk on wooden legs to stand before him. The headlights are still on, illuminating his figure against the inky blackness of the forest.
“Can I…” I reach up to touch his face. “Can I just have one more…”
“Shut up, Mack.”
His lips are on me, hot and savage, echoed by the movement of his hands. Whatever cold surrounds me, I no longer feel. I’m safe here in his arms, if only for a little while. They are warm and familiar and comforting to me. Really, I couldn’t think of a better way to go. I hope he holds me close like this when he does it. I don’t want to know it’s coming.
He yanks my dress up and rubs his palm between my legs. I’m still sore from earlier, but just this touch from him… the knowledge that he still wants me after everything… is enough to make me crave him desperately.
I don’t have to beg him. He’s got me flipped onto my back and pressed against the hood of his car in no time. I half laugh and half sob when he unzips his pants and I realize what he’s doing. He told me he’d fuck me on it. And now he is.
He pushes inside of me, harder than steel and so fucking big I feel like I’m being torn in two. I welcome it. This sweet brutality. I want it to go on forever. I claw at his back and kiss his neck and murmur things against his skin. Confessions, admissions, declarations. It drives him crazy.
“Say it again,” he tells me with each thrust.
I repeat whatever irrational thought goes through my head in the moment. I tell him I wanted to keep him. How I love the way he fucks me. How much he’s rubbed off onto me, and how goddamn beautiful he is. I talk about his accent, his ass, even his fighting skills. It’s all coming out in half pants and sobs.
“Have ye anything else to say?” he whispers in my ear. “Like ye did earlier?”
Tears are rolling down my face when I look up into his eyes and tell him.
“I love you.”
He thrusts harder.
“I love you,” I repeat.
Another hard thrust. He wants to hear it, and yet he’s punishing me for it.
“I fucking love you!” I scream. “I love you goddammit! You fucking asshole. I hate you for making me love you.”
He comes inside of me with a grunt and collapses on top of me. His fingers are still working my clit, and I’m sobbing when I come too.
“Just do it,” I plead. “Do it already. I can’t wait any more. I need you to do it.”
He’s staring down at me, his eyes filled with pain, but he isn’t moving. He’s inside of me. On top of me. Everywhere around me. This is pure torture now.
“Just fucking do it!” I scream.
He grabs me by the throat and slaps his other hand over my mouth. My body goes lax beneath him, and relief courses through my veins. But after a moment, I realize the pressure isn’t there, and I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
“Cop onto yourself, sweetheart,” he says.
And then he takes his hand off my mouth and replaces it with his lips. They’re soft and gentle and sweet and completely fucking sadistic to do this to me.
“Lachlan…”
“Shut up, Mack.”
He pulls out of me and zips himself back up. And then he helps me up off the hood of the car. I can’t even find the energy to ask what the hell he’s doing when he walks me back to the passenger side and deposits me onto the seat.
He gets in beside me, and then we’re driving again. In silence. Through the goddamn woods. Lach’s fingers are threaded through mine the entire time. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. What he’s doing. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I’m trying to silence the insane thoughts looping through my brain.
And then we pull up to a house. But not so much a house as a fortress in the middle of nowhere.
“What is this place?” I ask when he cuts the engine.
“Shut up, Mack.”
Again, he helps me out of the car. He leads me across the yard, pausing just before we get to the door.
“Alexei can’t hear properly,” he says. “Ye need to look at him when ye speak.”
I blink, and he squeezes my hand tighter.
“Don’t be obvious about it, Mack.”
That’s the end of the conversation, because a moment later, another man is opening the door.
“Franco.” Lachlan nods in greeting.
“Mr. Crow.”
“I need to speak with Alexei.”
The man opens the door wide and gestures us inside. “Of course, sir.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mackenzie
We sit in a lounge area, waiting for this man named Alexei. I still have no idea what we’re doing here.
Lach’s got me pulled tight against his chest, his arm wrapped around me possessively while his fingers rub up and down my back. I feel his gaze on me, but I can’t look at him. There is too much uncertainty about what comes next, and I’m barely holding on by a thread. I fear that one look at him will unravel me completely.
Finally, the man in question enters the room.
The man who I presume to be Alexei doesn’t make a sound as he takes a seat across from us. He’s a large man, tall with broad shoulders and an athletic body. He’s also quite handsome, but there’s a haunting sadness about his face. Melancholy blue eyes snap to me before he fixes them on Lachlan.
He says something in Russian, to which Lachlan replies, shocking the hell out of me. After a moment of this back and forth, the room goes silent again. A housekeeper comes in and pours the men a drink and then asks me if I’d like one as well. I shake my head and thank her anyway.