Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Pinned by this stranger who wielded some kind of power that I couldn’t allow him to possess.
In a flash, the amusement had drained from his face. Fierce, fathomless eyes speared me to the spot.
“Not sure why you’re afraid of me, Piper…” His voice shifted, turning serious and grave. “But I can promise you, I won’t lay a finger on you.” He leaned in closer, his mouth close to grazing my ear as his tone shifted again. “Not unless you want me to.”
Heat streaked through my veins.
I knew what this was.
Attraction.
Something I rarely felt. Something I would never again give myself over to.
And that was why I needed to stay as far away from this man as possible.
He took a step back, and I sagged forward, as if he was the one who had been keeping me standing.
“Now, give me your phone number so I can text you in the morning to set up a time that we can go over to the autobody shop and get the word on your car, yeah?”
I breathed out a tremulous breath at the sudden change in his demeanor. I couldn’t even process the way he had me giving in as I rattled off the numbers.
His head tipped down, and a longer lock of his black hair fell forward to brush over his forehead as he entered the number into his phone and sent a text.
My phone dinged in my back pocket.
He tipped his attention back up to me, another smirk riding to his full, pink lips as he muttered, “I promise not to do anything worthy of a one-star review with it.”
Stunned, I stood floundering around inside myself, trying to figure out how this man had so easily bent me to his will.
I didn’t share my phone number with men, or anyone, for that matter.
Sure, I got a new one every few months, but that didn’t mean I should go around being reckless with it.
“I’ll be back in a couple minutes with your food. Go in and warm up. It’s cold out here.”
I tried to form a response. To find a way to put him off.
But that ball of razors in my throat made it impossible to speak.
Uncertainty clashed inside me. Sickness at being a jerk to him when he’d been nothing but kind.
Okay, he’d also been overbearing and demanding.
But still—kind.
I mean, we could still be stuck in that frozen car if it weren’t for him.
What would have happened then?
Laughter rang from inside the cabin. The low tenor of my grandmother’s and tinkling of my son’s.
Gratitude curled through my being, so fierce and unrelenting that when Theo turned his back and strode off the porch, the man nothing but a slick of darkness slipping through the glinting snow, the words were crawling up through the sludge of doubt and fear and getting loose of my tongue.
“Thank you.”
Ten feet down the path, he turned around, walking backward as he muttered, “And what are you thanking me for?”
I knew he was drawing me out by the tweak at the edge of his plush mouth.
I was already stuck here, anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter. “For everything.”
The smile he wore softened, though the rest of him was still carved in ferocity. “Wouldn’t have left you on the side of the road, Piper, just like I’m not gonna leave you in need, either.”
There was something about it that sounded so much deeper than the mere acts of kindness he’d demonstrated for us tonight. Something that sounded of a dire, indestructible claim.
As if his entire being were written in it.
Without saying anything else, he swung back around and disappeared into the murky shadows that consumed the path.
Trembling, I slipped back into the cabin, and I quietly snapped the door shut. My forehead dropped to the wood as I slowly turned the lock.
Metal grated as the deadbolt clicked into place.
My shoulders tensed when I sensed the presence edge up behind me. The concern that radiated out from her beautiful, graceful soul.
“Why are you always so sure everyone is out to get you?” Nelly’s voice was soft.
I breathed out around the truth that we had no choice but to abide by, and I turned around to face her as I whispered, “Because no one can be trusted.”
FOUR
THEO
The sky sagged low as I slipped along the perimeter grounds of The Sanctuary. The night was so dense it felt like it’d become its own entity.
The cold as thick as a block of ice as I trudged through the deep banks of snow that had gathered during the storm.
It was quiet, though. The storm having passed, the disorder replaced by a viscid stillness.
Only movement around was the bare rustle in the tops of the trees. The soaring pines and the majestic oaks standing proud like sentinels guarding the property.
Most of the guests staying at The Sanctuary had long since absconded to their rooms, locked in the warmth to wait out the storm.