Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
…And I’d gotten the whole fucking nightmare immortalized as a goddamn tattoo — a highly visible one — right on my damn wrist.
This was a catastrophe.
I whirled again and stormed for the door.
“Off to find that annulment?”
“Yep!” I tossed over my shoulder.
“I’ll call you after, dear,” Cole chuckled, calling after me as I yanked open the hotel room door.
“Goodbye,” I snapped, storming out the door and slamming it shut behind me. It was only then that I let out the breath I’d been holding. The flashes from the night before came faster, flickering across my mind as I sank against the door, my fingers pushing into my hair as I gulped down another breath. The kiss, and then the infinite ones after that. His big, powerful hands on my body. Tumbling into the elevator with him, my wrist wrapped in a tattooist bandage and still burning.
And there it was again, that little voice telling me to turn around and go back to the man who’d made me feel more alive in one single night than I’d ever felt before. But once again, I shoved that voice away and told it to shut up. This was insane. Someone like me needed nothing to do with Prince Cole, and here I’d gone and freaking married him.
My parents were seriously going to kill me.
I needed an annulment. And I needed a tattoo removal. And I needed them now.
Chapter 3
Cole
She didn’t belong there. Fuck, neither did I, but at least I could blend in. But her? No way. She stuck out like a star in the darkness. A jewel shining through the mud.
A rose growing through the cracks of broken and shattered pavement.
One second I’d been just another tattooed punk rocker in a leather jacket, slamming out to the thunderous music blasting over the audience. But the next second, I’d turned my head and spotted her, and it was like the rest of the world just shut the fuck down.
The music went mute. The crowd shoving and thrashing around me froze to statues. My heart pumped like an engine in my chest. My muscles tensed, my eyes narrowed, and my cock turned to fucking steel in my jeans. I saw her there to the side of the stage half in darkness, and I knew one thing and one thing only.
She was mine.
Not mine like she was just some hot rocker chick I wanted to have riding my cock. Not even close. I saw her and knew in one quarter of a second that she was mine, and mine for good. I looked at her, and it was like I was seeing fucking sunlight after years in the darkness. It was like I was breathing air for the very first time. And I wanted her.
Long, dark chestnut hair. Soft, pouty lips. Legs that made my cock throb and hips that made my hands clench into fists. She was gorgeous, captivating, and sexy as hell in that short little white dress, even if in a den of wolves like that place, it made her prey.
And the wolves had fucking noticed. Trust me, I knew. I’d used to be one of them.
I’d been born into royalty, but that didn’t mean I’d ever wanted it. When I’d been younger, I’d railed against the system that wanted to mold me into this nice, charming little prince. The way I’d figured, it wasn’t anything I’d ever wanted, and I’d be damned if I’d let them force me into it. I’d been a fucking terror when I was kid — always giving my parents hell and acting out every damn chance I’d gotten. And when I was seventeen, I’d run off to chase my love of music, not a throne.
Thirty years old now and looking back at that time in my life, I could only shake my head. It’d been a phase, for sure, even if the band I’d landed in had really started to pick up some buzz before I was eventually called home. You see, when my dad got sick, it’d changed something in me. That need to always push back just sort of faded a little bit. Or maybe I was just growing the fuck up. Whatever it was, I’d gone home four years after I’d left to help take care of my dad.
The band, Vengeance Overload, had gone on to start kicking some serious ass and putting out some real hits. I had times where I was jealous or a little bitter about missing out, but now that I was a man and not that hell-raising kid anymore, I knew the power I’d been born into meant responsibility, too. When my dad passed and my mother took over rule of the country, I knew it was my place to help guide my kingdom.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t escape here and there. That’s what I was doing that night, actually. Vengeance, my old band, had a show in Paris to kick off their first tour in a couple of years, and I’d jumped at the chance to see the guys again. But you know those rough bands that get softer as the members get older?