Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
A parched sensation blankets my throat, so dry it’s futile to try to swallow.
The sound of heavy footsteps coming closer to me from the doorway at the end of the long hall, makes my body flinch with each step. They’re brutal and dominating. They belong to Carter, no doubt.
Confirming my thought, the brooding beast enters the hall, a bottle of whiskey in his left hand and a tumbler with ice in his right. He doesn’t bother to hide how pissed he still is. Pissed at me, judging from his acrimonious glare. Again I find myself unable to swallow, but I can’t help confronting him.
“What did I do to deserve this?” I bite out the words as he starts to walk past me, down to the hall leading to his wing and presumably his bedroom or office. “What the fuck did I do but merely exist in the painful life I didn’t choose?”
My heart batters against my chest while I wish to either run with fear, or beat him with pent-up rage. I’m not sure which.
Even though my own legs feel weak and numb from everything that’s happened tonight, keeping me planted where I am, Carter’s move forward as he ignores my question.
How fucking dare he ignore me.
With my ragged voice raised, I scream at him until my face is hot. “What did I do to deserve this?”
It only takes three strides before Carter’s powerful presence is towering over me, and I nearly stumble backward. Nearly, but I keep my ground. I’m breathing chaotically and waiting for him to give me something. Anything is better than being ignored, made to feel like I don’t even exist.
“Where do I start, Miss Talvery?” His voice is low as he moves down until his face is eye level with mine. He practically sneers my name and it shreds me from the inside. “You pointed a gun at me. You stand with your ex-lover and your father who have tried to kill me, not once, not twice, but every chance they get. Including the time one week ago, by said, fucking, ex, in which you knew what was happening but said nothing.” The last word is sneered. He inhales deeply, pausing as pain rips through me.
I worry my bottom lip between my teeth before I bite down on it hard. The physical pain is vastly preferable to the emotional pain that boils inside of me at his aggressive attitude.
Carter already knew all of that when he fucked me the other night. When he held me like he loved me. Nothing has changed for me, and I don’t deserve this. I love him. I’ve chosen him time and time again. The fact I’m still here after everything is proof of that.
“And then you tried to run,” he adds and I whip my hand across his face. It’s purely out of instinct, generated by his arrogance and the way I feel used and defiled by him. My palm smacks hard against his chiseled cheek and my fingers follow.
His face is like fucking stone. My hand throbs with a stinging, burning pain and as I wince, my eyes stay on Carter’s unmoving expression. It didn’t affect him in the least. All of the sickness and hurt that ache inside of me, I feel it all and he feels nothing.
Nothing.
“I didn’t,” I tell him, knowing I didn’t try to run. It was only a passing thought and I won’t be accused of anything more than that. Not when everything is stacked against us and I’m doing everything I can to stay by him. Even when he stands firmly against me.
Time passes and he merely stares at me, judging me, but I let him see the pain. I want to hide myself in this lonesome tower he’s put me in, but I stand in front of him with my hands in fists by my side and beg him to feel what I feel. And to take it away.
“I don’t deserve this, Carter,” I say and my voice is strangled. Please just take it all away. I wish he could do that for me. However it entails, I don’t want to feel this way for a second longer.
“I thought they’d taken you,” he continues to talk with a look of disgust on his face, even though pain is etched into his words. “But you were just sneaking out to run away. What a fucking fool I was,” he sneers.
“You are a fucking fool.” I mimic his mocking tone, refusing to give him all of me when he chooses to believe otherwise. Holding my hand, which has started to go numb, I back away from him, knowing this battle is over and both of us have lost. “I wasn’t running,” I tell him the truth and then add, “And I won’t say it again.” The strength in my voice comes from some part of me deep inside. The part of me that knows I could stand beside this man. The part desperate to do exactly that.