Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 158191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 791(@200wpm)___ 633(@250wpm)___ 527(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 158191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 791(@200wpm)___ 633(@250wpm)___ 527(@300wpm)
“Shh, baby, you’re safe with me,” Absinthe whispered, his fingers moving over her ear gently, his mouth brushing kisses into the messy topknot she’d made of her hair to prevent it from getting wet. “Anything either of us has done in the past stays there. The past shaped us into being who we are, why we need one another. I need you. I swear to you, Scarlet, I want you just the way you are. I hope like hell you want me the same way.”
She realized she had tears running down her face and knew just sitting in the water with Absinthe was some kind of catharsis, a purification, a cleansing. She knew Absinthe meant every word. They had a connection, a path that lay open between them, and she felt his loneliness. She’d always been alone, and she’d accepted her path. Absinthe was different. He’d been with his family, those seventeen people who still surrounded him and yet he was desperately lonely. Why?
He thought himself unlovable. That she could never love him if she knew the truth about him and what he wanted from her. His deepest need. His darkest craving. Her stomach did a slow roll as she tried to puzzle it out. Absinthe was such a gorgeous, handsome man. Intelligent. More than intelligent. He had amazing gifts. What could he possibly need from her that he would think would make her want to run from him? That was in his mind. What made him think the others didn’t know him? And if they did, that they would turn their backs on him? Detest him, even kill him. That made no sense. What was it that he needed? Why was he so lonely?
She knew he said he could command with his voice, but she still wasn’t certain he could do that to her, or that she was willing to give her consent.
What was it he didn’t think she would do for him that he wanted the most? Scarlet waited. They were skin to skin. Her mind was open to his. He knew all of her secrets. She wanted him to just open up and tell her his. She realized he was considering just using his voice on her, forcing his will on her without her consent, but that went against everything he’d ever promised himself once he’d left the hellhole he’d been raised in. He was struggling with his decision: tell her, let her go or do what he always had done—force his will.
The moment he considered forcing his will on her, his mind turned into a world of horror. It became a kind of jumble of torture and rape, with men slamming little boys and girls into walls and hitting them with fists or even whips, laughing and forcing them to their knees. She caught glimpses of Absinthe as a child. She recognized him by his eyes, or was it his brother? She only knew there was blood, rape and twisted things that should never have been experienced by anyone, let alone a child.
She caught glimpses of so many horrendous images crowding into his mind that she couldn’t stand it. She had to do something to stop it. She reached behind her with one arm, caught his head to bring it down to hers as she turned her own and initiated a kiss for the first time in her life.
For Scarlet, it was daring, terrifying and desperate. For her, at that moment, more than anything else, more than her own fears, her own needs, she had to stop those memories from eating him alive. She could see the demons devouring him. Ugly. Real. These weren’t from a book, a horror story he’d read, a movie he’d seen or a nightmare that needed waking from. Absinthe had lived through torture and rape. He had seen things she never wanted to see again. A boy huddled in a corner with blood all over him, whispering, naked and cold, tears running down his face, trying to comfort other children, some dying, some already dead.
She initiated the kiss and knew it was tentative and awkward, but she stroked her tongue along his and poured what she felt for him into it. Her need to give him everything. Her promise of submission to him. The very unexpected and growing affection she had for him. Emotion spread through her like a tidal wave, consuming her with astonishing and unforeseen passion that built until she recognized it as being too close to love. She barely knew him and yet she was already feeling that strong of a craving toward him. That outpouring of a promise that she would be the one person to love him unconditionally. She could give him that. She knew she could.
Deliberately, Scarlet concentrated on the fire between them, pouring the flames over the images in his mind, building that terrible burn slowly because she had no real idea what she was doing, only that she had to take the horror away and give her man the knowledge that she could love him no matter what they had done to him. No matter what he demanded, wanted or needed from her. As long as he gave her the same back, she was willing.