Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Chapter 17
Elis – Five Years Ago
The funeral was nice. A closed casket and a bunch of hypocrites who wouldn’t hire my father after what the Prices did to him, telling my mother how he was a great man and they would miss him very much. My mother stood there, shaking their hands and saying thank you on repeat like a damn broken record player.
Sarena was the only one who really looked broken. She was holding onto her teddy bear, an old rumpled brown thing, completely disheveled and mangled. I hadn’t seen that thing in years, but she had been holding it the last week and crying herself to sleep every night. I’d started sleeping on the floor because I was so worried about her. Being an adult and suffering a loved one’s suicide wasn’t easy, but at twelve, it was incomprehensible. I looked at her crouched beside the casket, looking so small.
“Hey, Sarena, want to come with me and get a few snacks?” I asked, offering her my hand.
She gazed up at me. Her eyes were red and swollen as she tried to hold back the tears floating in them. She shook her head as I crouched down beside her.
“It will be okay,” I whispered, putting my arm around her frail shoulders. It broke my heart how she crawled into me and started sobbing uncontrollably.
“We have to move,” she whispered into my chest, her small body shaking.
“Moving isn’t bad. It’s a new adventure,” I lied. “New friends. New house. I’m sure Mom will let you decorate your room any way you want.”
“You know I’m twelve, right?” she asked, looking up at me, her nose scrunched up in disgust. “I’m not some baby who thinks everything will be okay. Our lives are about to change. Say goodbye to everything.”
“Well, shit, if you aren’t a baby, why are you carrying that ugly old thing?” I pointed to her decrepit stuffed bear.
“It doesn’t change. My whole life, the one thing I’ve always been sure of is this bear.” Her eyes cast down as she mindlessly rubbed what was left of the stuffed animal’s nose.
“Look at me,” I demanded. Her gaze moved from the bear to me. “No matter what, you will always have me.”
“You’re gonna be too busy with Devlynn.”
“I ended it with her.”
“What? Why?” she asked, her eyes startled and wide.
“Her mother is the reason our father is dead. Her father is the reason we have to move. I don’t want anything to do with her or her kind. Not anymore,” I lied again.
I would always want something to do with Devlynn Price, but I knew that to keep myself and my family safe, I had to walk away. Forever.
Chapter 18
Devlynn
His eyes flashed before he hauled me to him in an even tighter embrace, our bodies pressed against my apartment windows with the drapes open.
His sweat slicked my skin as his lips met mine, and our tongues tangled in an erotic dance. He tasted sinful and sweet, a combination I could die for.
I melted instantly in his arms like I always did, pushing my hands into his hair. Our lips smashed together so tightly they’d be swollen in the morning, and I didn't care. His hands caressed my back, ribcage, breasts, and ass. He slammed me against the floor-to-ceiling windows and held me firmly against his lean body.
I pulled his shirt off, and a flood of arousal hit me between my thighs. My heart thudded in my ears as we stared at each other, lost in a lust-filled gaze.
“I could go insane thinking about anyone else's hands on you,” he muttered.
He claimed my lips with his, sliding his hands up my thighs and lifting me against the door with a thigh in each hand. I hung suspended, his hips snug between my legs and my arms around his neck. We kissed, and I tugged his hair, whimpering into his mouth and rocking into his arousal. I panted as he held me high on my hips, his cock pressed against the thin fabric of my panties.
“Mine. This pussy is mine and only mine.”
He angled his body into me and rubbed with deft strokes. Lust consumed me, causing my hips to move in rhythm with his of their own volition.
My brain was foggy with need as I confessed, “You’re the only one who’s ever been there, Elis.”
“Baby,” he grunted, his big, strong body sinking against mine with my admission. “You don’t know what that does to me. To know you haven’t been with anyone but me, that it’s only ever been us, even after all these years…” He kissed me with determined strokes. “I couldn’t bring myself to even look at anyone else. I saw you everywhere. There’s never been anyone for me but you, even when I hated to admit it. Even when I was running from us, I was only running from me, Princess. And I’m sick of running from you.”